A method of authenticating the communication of an authentication device and at least one authentication server using a local factor with creation of secret information shared by the authentication device and the authentication server; the reference information is derived from the secret information shared by the authentication device and the authentication server, where the manner of derivation is the same on the authentication device and on the authentication server; furthermore, the authentication device creates transformed reference information by means of cryptographic transformation from the reference information, where the local factor chosen and entered by the user or obtained from a medium or from the surrounding environment is used as an input in this cryptographic transformation, and where only the transformed reference information is stored on the authentication device and only the reference information is stored on the authentication server.