News
VASCO offers authentication services based on IDENTIKEY
March 2009 by Marc Jacob
VASCO Data Security Inc. and the IT service provider datec24 Services are partnering to offer subscription-based DIGIPASS authentication to datec24 customers. Under the terms of the agreement datec24 will host VASCO’s IDENTIKEY® server. The IDENTIKEY server will be used to offer on-demand authentication to a number of customers. This way, customers are able to secure data on the corporate network and web-based applications with strong authentication without large investments or complicated deployments.
The authentication service, which VASCO also offers directly to customers and known as DIGIPASS® Plus, is ideal to protect mission critical data stored in hosted applications or Software as a Service solutions. Software as a Service (SaaS) is generally on the rise. More and more companies use hosted applications, such as CRM, accounting and payroll applications. The decision to implement SaaS is most often taken by the business owners, not least due to cost efficiency. The IT departments generally are concerned about security: Are the outsourced data really secured? Are the confidential data only accessible by authorized users? Two-factor authentication can protect such sensitive data on the web.
To log-on to SaaS applications employees will no longer use the static password which is by default offered by the application. Employees will log-on through their DIGIPASS®. The software or hardware based DIGIPASS will provide the employees with a One-Time Password (OTP) which they will type into the logon screen. The OTP becomes obsolete after 36 seconds and therefore cannot be re-used when intercepted by hackers or shared with unauthorized co-workers.
Under the terms of this agreement, datec24 will host the server infrastructure to support the subscription based authentication service. Subscription fees as of 3.55 EUR per month will provide companies with an authentication solution for employees, including the VASCO DIGIPASS authenticators. The service is based on VASCO’s IDENTIKEY Server.
IDENTIKEY 3.0 is VASCO’s authentication server solution, based on VACMAN technology, which offers DIGIPASS two-factor authentication for remote access to networks and for web based applications. The solution is ideal for medium and large enterprises who want to integrate user authentication or signature validation into their web applications. Its SOAP interface enables IDENTIKEY integration in virtually any web based environment.
In a first public test phase an offer has been created offering increased security through IDENTIKEY based authentication services for companies using the CRM on-demand platform Salesforce.com.
Besides the low investment, the use of authentication services has a number of other advantages: There is no need for time-consuming and costly integration. There is no additional hardware or software required on the server side of the customer, the SOAP interface of IDENTIKEY allows seamless integration. datec24 ensures a swift deployment and the high availability of the service. Thanks to the subscription fee, authentication can steadily grow with the size of the company. Furthermore the customer does not need to worry about impacting IT resources with updates, these are done automatically and part of the subscription.
