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Entrust Secure ID Mgmt Solution Chosen For U.S. Gov't Initiative

Entrust Inc announced that Entrust GetAccess, a key component of the Entrust Secure Identity Management Solution, has received approval of the U.S. Federal Government E-Authentication Federation Initiative for use by U.S. Government departments employing E-Authentication. This approval builds on Entrust's long-standing involvement with the initiative and signifies that this solution has met the requirements set by the E-Authentication Interoperability Lab in order to authenticate users of government systems within the E-Authentication architecture.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) E-Authentication Initiative is aimed at providing the necessary federated identity infrastructure to support a common, unified authentication process and streamline access to government on-line resources. Based on industry standards such as SAML, E-Authentication will help government departments and agencies accelerate delivery of on-line services by allowing them to leverage a variety of electronic credential providers.

As a result of this approval, Government departments can use Entrust GetAccess to help control access to sensitive resources and provide an improved on-line experience to both government employees and citizens. The solution includes seamless support for multiple levels of authentication and can be easily extended to Web Services applications.

As a part of the E-Authentication initiative, GSA has retained Enspier Technologies, a consulting services vendor specializing in government, to lead the E-Authentication Architecture Work Group (AWG) and operate the program's interoperability lab.

"The Federal Government's E-Authentication Initiative is a vital step towards establishing trust in the security of information exchanged between various government agencies, as well as between business and government," said Chris Louden, chief technology officer of Enspier. "Vendor participation and support, such as that demonstrated by Entrust, is absolutely necessary to create and foster a unified standard for this initiative."

The ability to identify and control access to on-line resources via policy is the cornerstone of a federated system of trust for citizen-to-government, government-to-business and government-to-government transactions.

The Entrust Secure Identity Management Solution supports a broad set of authentication requirements needed by various government departments and agencies. The Entrust GetAccess software component of this solution provides a policy-driven approach to identity and access management, enabling employees, partners, and citizens to authenticate themselves to a government department and enjoy subsequent single sign-on to resources they are authorized to see across the government's entire on-line presence.

"The E-Authentication initiative represents one of the leading applications of federated identity," said Chris Voice, vice-president of secure identity management at Entrust. "Entrust is pleased to build on its extensive set of credentials in the Government market with the validation of the Secure Identity Management solution and provide departments and agencies with the opportunity to accelerate their on-line offerings."