It could also give future corporate IT managers the option of eliminating long, ever-changing passwords and replacing them with short personal identification numbers, or fingerprints and other identifiers.

Intel vice president Tom Garrison said that Intel Authenticate will be added to the company's line of sixth-generation processors and tested by some businesses before entering production.

Intel will make Authenticate part of all the processors that it sells for enterprise PCs. The authentication system uses hardware-based "multifactor authentication"-more than one method of identifying a user-to keep hackers out, even if they obtain passwords.

Putting the authentication process on a chip makes the PC itself part of the security system, the company said.

Intel's new business processors will verify an employee's identity with a personal identification number, proximity of the employee's mobile phone or badge, biometrics like a fingerprint, and location of the building the employee is in.

IT managers can decide which factors to embed in the chip, Garrison said. "IT has full control."