YC Startup Multifactor Launches the First Password Manager Built for the AI era, Making Anything a Read-Only Link

Designed for both humans and AI agents, Multifactor allows anyone to share access to online accounts without ever exposing passwords

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Multifactor, a Y Combinator Fall 2025 startup founded by a former CIA agent and a former NASA scientist, today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind password manager that allows both humans and AI agents to access online accounts securely without ever exposing underlying credentials. As a public demonstration of its proprietary security technology, the company will temporarily make its actual corporate bank account accessible to the public starting on November 12 through a read-only Checkpoint link containing $1 million dollars in business funds, sharing the link via a billboard in Times Square in New York City. Visitors using the link will be able to log in to the account, view the live balance and recent transactions, all without any ability to alter the account, make transfers or access its credentials.

Checkpoint seamlessly turns any online account into a one-click shareable link, in a similar manner to how Google Docs can be shared for viewing or editing. With Checkpoint, a user can grant temporary 'read-only' access to anything from a bank account, email inbox, calendar or social platform, to more complex financial dashboards and business software systems, all while maintaining full control over what the recipient is able to see or do. Access can be revoked instantly without resetting passwords, tracking credentials, or worrying that the recipient is still logged in. Checkpoint also serves as the most secure interface for AI agents, allowing them to perform useful tasks inside accounts with only the access levels the user has allowed. Backed by [8] patents, Multifactor offers best-in-class authentication, authorization, and auditing technologies for agentic systems, allowing users to securely and revocably share online accounts with agents while maintaining fine-grained permissions and a detailed event history.

Prior to starting Multifactor, the company's CEO and co-founder, Vivek Nair, served as an agent within elite cyber units of the Department of Defense (DOD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he received the directorate's Exceptional Performance Award for advancing the frontiers of US cyber operations against foreign adversaries. As the youngest-ever recipient of a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, Nair has spent more than decade researching and developing frontier cybersecurity technologies, and is joined by co-founder and CTO, Colin Roberts, who is an applied cryptographer with a Ph.D. in mathematics. Roberts holds extensive experience in building and modeling complex, provably-secure multi-agent cyber systems, and previously served as a researcher at NASA working on the 'solar system internet.' Together they built Multifactor in response to an emerging class of security risks generated by autonomous AI agents. Recent high-profile incidents, including attacks that exploited simple calendar invites to hijack AI assistants and execute malicious actions, demonstrate the fragility of existing cybersecurity tools and immediate urgency of this problem, and organizations are adopting AI agents at a rate that far exceeds the development of corresponding security solutions. As a result, CISOs across industries have emphasized the need for verifiable, granular controls that govern how both humans and agents interact with sensitive accounts.

"For years, people have been forced to live with clunky, high-friction password systems that frustrate users while failing to keep them safe, and the security gap is only widening as AI agents become part of everyday workflows," said Vivek Nair, CEO and co-founder of Multifactor. "We created Multifactor to make it effortless to collaborate securely with humans and AI alike. Our platform is designed with provable cryptographic guarantees: as long as the laws of mathematics don't fail, your security won't either."

Multifactor's zero-trust technology provides authentication, authorization, and auditing designed specifically for agentic systems. It ensures that AI agents can work inside online accounts with provable guarantees about what they can see or modify, and it records every action in a transparent event history. This approach prevents vulnerabilities like prompt injection, cross-agent hijacking, and confused-deputy attacks that traditional password managers, identity tools, and legacy enterprise systems cannot mitigate. Early enterprise partners are already evaluating Multifactor in environments that include manufacturing supply chains exceeding $7.5 billion dollars in throughput, where even minor security lapses would have severe consequences.

With the ubiquity of online access underpinning the majority of everyday life and work activities, Checkpoint also addresses everyday needs for individuals and small teams. Early users include personal assistants who require temporary access to email or calendar accounts without the ability to send messages; financial advisors who need to review brokerage accounts without holding client passwords; and households that want to share services for home entertainment or shopping needs while being able to add or remove people easily. As passkeys, biometrics, and multi-factor authentication continue to strengthen account security, sharing access with both humans and AI has become increasingly fragmented, difficult and time-consuming. Checkpoint uniquely offers a solution that preserves security while offering maximum convenience.

As a firsthand demonstration of its Checkpoint system, the company has challenged the internet to put its security technology to the test by sharing 'read-only' access to their $1 million corporate bank account. Timed around the product's public launch, Multifactor has publicly broadcast via billboard and online access to a temporary read-only link to its active corporate bank account that contains the $1 million dollars in operating funds the company has raised to date. The access link will be available for anyone to use for a limited window, after which access will be revoked via the Checkpoint system. The company will also publish a post-event summary detailing usage, access logs, and how the system safeguarded the account throughout the demonstration.

Multifactor is also previewing its upcoming product, Multi, an AI assistant designed to perform secure online tasks on behalf of users through the Checkpoint infrastructure. API access for developers and an enterprise plan with advanced agentic controls are planned for release in the coming months, while the core version of Multifactor will remain free forever for all users.

For more information about Checkpoint and Multifactor's security platform, visit www.multifactor.com, and to gain direct access to Multifactor's corporate bank account, visit www.multifactor.com/bank.

Contact:
Erin Simpson
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[email protected]

SOURCE Multifactor