Entrust Authentication Platform Provides Security for Tokyo Institute of Technology
Combination of traditional logic and physical access controls with innovative new authentication techniques allows for single solution to address broad range of security requirements
13 Jul 2006
DALLAS and TOKYO - As the Tokyo Institute of Technology(Tokyo Tech)examined their technology plans for 2006, they faced several security challenges that needed to be addressed before any project could be undertaken. First, they wanted to offer more services via the web to their population of about 14,000 students, faculty and staff. Second, they wanted to combine physical and logical access with smartcard technology but also needed to provide a way for students and faculty to authenticate themselves in the event a smart card reader was not available. To help tackle these challenges, Entrust, Inc. [NASDAQ: ENTU] provided a suite of its world-class products - the Entrust GetAccess™ server, the Entrust IdentityGuard platform, and the Entrust Authority™ Security Manager - to provide a comprehensive, integrated authentication platform, so the institution can securely offer more services to students and faculty.
"Tokyo Tech faced a common challenge of organizations today: how to deliver more on-line services to a disparate user base without having to implement and manage separate security silos. They wanted a way to integrate physical and logical access control, deliver step up authentication for particularly sensitive transactions and offer services both inside and outside their organization," said Entrust Chief Technology Officer Chris Voice. "Entrust has helped simplify the process and delivered authentication and access control capabilities through this integrated suite of products."
Tokyo Tech also wanted to put a campus-wide authentication infrastructure in place and needed a system that eventually could integrate with their existing public key infrastructure in the future. In addition to the strong authentication provided by Entrust IdentityGuard, the solution also offered a method that could be used to authenticate users in the absence of smartcard readers. With the new system, students and faculty can authenticate themselves to work either online, through an automated telephone system, in person or even for VPN or wireless LAN access. The new security solution from Entrust has been fully operational since April 2006.
"Our long term goal was to have a security solution that would integrate with an all-campus information repository," said Associate Professor Katsuyoshi Iida, Ph.D., Global Scientific Information and Computing Center, Tokyo Tech. "With this seamless combination from Entrust, we didn't have to wait long to get everything integrated and running smoothly for our students and faculty. The best part is that they don't have to worry about securing themselves. Entrust technology has helped take care of that."
Leading the world in science and technology, Tokyo Tech is committed to constant evolution. They also produce world-class graduates, create leading edge knowledge and contribute to society through the utilization of knowledge. The school also is one of Japan's top centers for research and development in technology.
Entrust Authority Security Manager, the world's-leading public-key infrastructure (PKI), is designed to manage the digital keys and certificates that make up the digital identities used to transparently automate security-related processes in an organization. As an organization's Certification Authority (CA) system, Entrust Authority Security Manager software helps enable the use of digital signature, digital receipt, encryption and permissions management services across a wide variety of applications and solutions.
The Entrust GetAccess server is a high performance, scalable Web access control solution. It can help centrally manage access to multiple applications through a single portal, providing users with single sign-on to the applications and content they are authorized to see. Fully SAML 2.0 compliant, the Entrust GetAccess server has been on the list of approved E-Authentication products under the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) E-Authentication Initiative since August of 2004.
Entrust IdentityGuard is a comprehensive multi-factor authentication platform for Internet and enterprise applications. This suite of strong authentication capabilities helps enable organizations to take a risk-based approach to tailoring security deployment. The flexible deployment options allow organizations to match strong authentication methods to the level of risk associated with the different types of users, transactions, and applications in their own environment.
About the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech)
Tokyo Tech, http://www.titech.ac.jp/, located in Tokyo Japan, is often considered the "MIT of Japan" and is one of the leading technical universities in the world. Founded in 1881, Tokyo Tech currently operates several supercomputers and has a long history of being a world leader in high performance computing.