Entrust securing virtual safety deposit boxes
07 April, 2010
category: Digital ID
Luxemburg’s SeeZam S.A. has selected Entrust Inc. to deploy a three-tiered authentication solution to secure its online information service. Facilitated by the Entrust IdentityGuard authentication platform, SeeZam will use a combination of authenticators to manage access to an online application that secures personal information, legal documents and other sensitive data.
SeeZam’s online service is designed to provide a secure, centralized location to store critical information, particularly if the account holder passes away. It enables family members to have all the necessary tools for essential arrangements and asset distribution. The service secures some of the most private of documents, including wills, legal notices and life insurance policies.
To safeguard this information, the Entrust IdentityGuard authentication platform was used to form the foundation for a SeeZam-branded, three-tiered security infrastructure — public, confidential and secret. Each level is protected by a more advanced authenticator.
SeeZam’s public service tier now offers username and password capabilities. The next two dedicated SeeZam tiers — confidential and secret — are protected by grid cards and one-time-passcode (OTP) hardware tokens, respectively. The secret account type is unique in that it is designed to grant access to two named, trusted and authenticated individuals, in the event of an account holder’s death.
The Entrust-patented grid card is a credit card-sized authenticator consisting of numbers and characters in a row-column format. Upon login, users are presented with a coordinate challenge and must respond with the information in the corresponding cells from the unique grid card they possess. The authenticator is equally effective in consumer or enterprise environments.
Entrust offers two versions of the popular OTP hardware token. Starting at just $5, the Entrust IdentityGuard Mini Token is OATH-compliant and generates a secure eight-digit passcode at the press of a button. The OATH-compliant Pocket Token offers additional features including PIN unlock prior to generating the passcode, in addition to a challenge-response mode.
Entrust IdentityGuard enables organizations to layer security — according to access requirements or the risk of a given transaction — across users and applications. The platform’s authentication options include username and password, IP-geolocation, device, questions and answers, out-of-band one-time passcode (delivered via voice, SMS or e-mail), grid cards (physical or eGrid) cards, digital certificates and a range of one-time-passcode tokens.
SeeZam.com, a virtual safety deposit box, offers a service that is designed to securely store sensitive information. With its unique multilingual Web-based interface, the solution enables users to share encrypted data with loved ones during unfortunate events.