Ministry of Economic Development of New Zealand Selects Entrust IdentityGuard

MED to deploy Entrust’s low-cost, two-factor authentication solution for Web and remote access authentication

07 Jun 2005

DALLAS – Entrust, Inc. [NASDAQ: ENTU], a world-leader in securing digital identities and information, today announced that the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) of New Zealand has decided to deploy Entrust IdentityGuard to all users across the department to secure remote access to sensitive applications via Citrix Metaframe. This deployment is intended to replace a token solution that, due to high cost, is only used to provide authentication capability for a small sub-set of employees.

The Ministry of Economic Development facilitates, leads and implements the Coalition Government's vision for economic development. One of the government's key goals is to grow an inclusive, innovative economy that benefits all New Zealand citizens. For more information, please visit www.med.govt.nz.

“The Ministry of Economic Development is focused on improving government performance through the appropriate use of technology. A key business requirement is to deliver day-to-day business applications in a secure manner to the end user wherever they may be. This concept facilitates not only the ability to work remotely but also provides a level of business continuity to the Ministry,” said Stephen Isaacs, Senior IT Architect at the Ministry of Economic Development of New Zealand. “To help accomplish these goals, we required two-factor authentication in order to provide secure remote access via the Web for all of our employees. Entrust IdentityGuard was the most cost-effective solution for delivering this security capability.”

Entrust IdentityGuard is an easy-to-use two-factor authentication solution that can be used across the enterprise to secure sensitive applications and data, without the need to deploy expensive hardware devices to end users. With a single product, organizations are able to seamlessly deploy strong authentication for web applications like Citrix Metaframe and Windows desktops. Compared with more complicated strong authentication options, Entrust IdentityGuard provides a much simpler alternative, deploying grids of characters and numbers that are in turn used to answer a random challenge presented when accessing sensitive applications.

The Ministry saw value in replacing the expensive token system not only in terms of cost savings but in being able to extend security across the entire organization. “The Entrust solution is a fraction of the cost of our previous token solution, RSA SecurID®. As a result, instead of reaching just a subset of employees, we can deploy two-factor authentication across our entire agency,” added Isaacs.

“As MED has recognized, Entrust IdentityGuard is an attractive option for organizations looking to provide an enterprise-level low-cost form of two-factor authentication,” said Kevin Simzer, Senior Vice President at Entrust. “Higher-priced battery powered tokens are a thing of the past. Affordable solutions like Entrust IdentityGuard will drive a new wave of demand for two-factor authentication across government agencies and enterprises as we bring security to more users at an affordable price. Organizations can now direct those savings to other security needs, or back to tax payers or shareholders.”

Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust Limited in Canada. All other Entrust product names and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Entrust, Inc or Entrust Limited. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.