Orange County Sheriff’s Department increases security with BioPassword
19 November, 2007
category: Biometrics
BioPassword has announced that the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) in Santa Ana, California is using BioPassword Enterprise Edition to authenticate its 4,800 employees, including deputies, and prevent intruders from accessing sensitive information like case records and criminal history. BioPassword’s authentication software platform is based on a simple, yet powerful, combination of the user’s standard logon credentials (user name and password), and applies keystroke biometrics (their unique typing rhythm) as a second authentication factor.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department Polices Network Access With BioPassword
SEATTLE, WA — BioPassword, Inc., the leader in software-only strong authentication, today announced that Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) in Santa Ana, CA is using BioPassword Enterprise Edition to authenticate its 4,800 employees, including 1,800 deputies, and prevent intruders from accessing highly sensitive information like criminal history, deputy credentials and case records.
A proactive password audit by the OCSD IT department found that the majority of its users had passwords that were too simple, leaving the department vulnerable to attacks. Furthermore, many of the deputies were writing their passwords down and posting them on their monitors to help them remember. Clearly, this also posed a risk to their security. OCSD searched for a multi-factor authentication solution that would be widely adopted by its deputies and would mitigate risk associated with easily-cracked login credentials.
“We tried cards and tokens, but since our deputies are already carrying guns, batons and handcuffs, we couldn’t ask them to carry authentication hardware too,” said Captain Mike James, CIO at OCSD. “BioPassword eliminates all of the issues we had with tokens, and helps us to easily and effectively identify users and protect all of the sensitive information on our network.”
BioPassword’s authentication software platform is based on a simple, yet powerful, combination of the user’s standard logon credentials (user name and password), and applies keystroke biometrics (their unique typing rhythm) as a second authentication factor. In addition, BioPassword offers complementary software authentication factors such as knowledge-based authentication (user selected questions and answers) or software one-time passwords (single use password delivered to your mobile device).
“Clearly, security is of the utmost importance to law enforcement agencies, and we are excited that Orange County Sheriff’s Department has selected BioPassword to help secure its network from unwanted intruders,” said Peter Brant, vice president of sales, North America, at BioPassword. “This is a compelling endorsement for BioPassword that reinforces the strength of the solution and we’re proud to protect those who are protecting and serving the community.”
About Orange County Sheriff’s Department
Located in Santa Ana, CA, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department is a highly professional organization, which not only continues in its traditional role of crime suppression, but also has expanded into the area of crime prevention.
About BioPassword, Inc.
BioPassword, Inc. (http://www.biopassword.com), located in Issaquah, Washington, leads the market in providing award-winning strong authentication software for organizations seeking a solution that delivers high security with no change in user behavior at the lowest available cost. Unlike expensive authentication products which rely on hardware tokens or biometric readers, BioPassword uses a simple, yet powerful, combination of the user’s standard logon credentials (user name and password), and applies keystroke biometrics (their unique typing rhythm) as a second authentication factor. In addition, BioPassword offers complementary software authentication factors such as knowledge-based authentication (user selected questions and answers) or software one-time passwords (single use password delivered to your mobile device) to create the only authentication solution that makes available – something you know with something you are and something you have. BioPassword is accurate, secure, scalable to millions of users and immediately deployable across the enterprise and the Internet without impacting users. BioPassword is currently delivering strong authentication for organizations in a variety of industries, including: financial, healthcare, digital rights management, government, law enforcement, manufacturing, legal and automotive. To learn more about BioPassword visit our Web site or contact us at (425) 649-1100. For an online demonstration of BioPassword’s keystroke biometrics, log onto http://www.biopassword.com/demo1.
