Arcot Advisor
THE AUTHENTICATION AUTHORITY™ MARCH 2008
   

RegFort: A Security Ace-In-The-Hole

Online identity theft Digital IDs fill the critical gap for authentication that is flexible and secure. Digital IDs are issued to employees, customers, or partners (in physical or digital form) that authenticate user status. Once a digital ID system is in place, documents, emails, and other digital files can be secured for access based on ID, creating an impressive barrier to your entire infrastructure. In combination with a physical device (like a smart card), these ”combo cards” can be used for physical access also.

Most large organizations recognize that they need a consistent ID strategy – for physical and logical access. All users – employees, contractors, and partners – need logical access, but only some employees and contractors need physical access. Enterprises struggle with managing these disparate needs and ensuring that digital IDs must be carefully issued, reissued, secured, tracked, canceled, and managed.

What RegFort does
RegFort supports the full digital ID life cycle and integrates with provisioning systems (the *IM in the IDM stack). RegFort accepts requests for digital ID life cycle management from the provisioning systems and then manages the complete user interaction, including verifying users, interfacing with certificate authorities (CA), and loading the digital ID on the ArcotID software smart card, a physical smartcard, or a USB token.

RegFort simplifies digital ID and certificate management for the whole enterprise. RegFort offers a single point interface for all digital ID and certificate management – including machine certificates. RegFort meets the needs of individual enterprises and ID service providers serving the needs of multiple enterprises.

Keeps your options open
What makes RegFort unique is the wide variety of end repositories into which RegFort can load digital IDs. As an independent product, Arcot’s RegFort is not tied to smart cards and USBs from any specific vendor. RegFort can be configured to support a variety of digital ID types – based on enterprise needs, the purpose of the digital ID, and the certificate authority it is interacting with. By relying on RegFort, banks and enterprises can offer users a simple, efficient, and flexible security.

"Arcot's RegFort and ArcotID make digital IDs simpler to manage and will make them as ubiquitous as username/password," said R. “Doc” Vaidhyanathan, Vice President, Product Management.

Designed by your needs
Arcot also provides solutions for other vertical industries facing the continuing threat of cyber crime. For example, a large pharmaceutical company wanted a self-service process for issuing their employees' digital IDs. RegFort enabled a months-early deployment while providing a friendly security solution for users – and one easily maintained by the company.

"What most of our customers want is a security solution that's simple, easy for their customers to use, and quick to deploy," said Vaidhyanathan. "That's what Arcot is all about."

To learn more about the digital ID management process and how easy RegFort makes implementing a system, contact Arcot at 1-866-99-ARCOT or visit www.arcot.com/products.


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