Google has acquired SlickLogin, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based company with patent-pending authentication technology that uses sound and mobile phones.

When logging onto a website, the user's computer plays a unique sound through its speakers that is picked up and analyzed by an app on his or her smartphone. The phone then sends a signal back to the website to confirm the user's identity.

SlickLogin's technology can be used as part of a two-factor authentication system, and could act as an alternative to financial services websites sending one-time passcodes to customers' mobile devices.

The team behind the technology is joining Google, according to a statement on the SlickLogin website.

"We started SlickLogin because security measures had become overly complicated and annoying," the three members of the SlickLogin team, Or Zelig, Eran Galili and Ori Kabeli, say on the website. "Our friends thought we were insane, but we knew we could do better. So we set out to improve security while still making it simple for people to log in.

"Today we're announcing that the SlickLogin team is joining Google, a company that shares our core beliefs that logging in should be easy instead of frustrating, and authentication should be effective without getting in the way. Google was the first company to offer two-step verification to everyone, for free, and they're working on some great ideas that will make the Internet safer for everyone."

Learn more about mobile payments security.