IBM Builds Trust and Confidence in Human Identity Systems to Better Protect Customer and Corporate Intelligence

ARMONK, NY - With increased government and consumer pressures on companies to provide higher levels of identity assurance, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced technology that helps customers better control identity and access management in order to build trust and confidence in the critical systems running their businesses.

“Government regulations demand that enterprises take full responsibility for data security, and the linkage between data security and strong authentication should not be underestimated,” said Al Zollar, general manager, IBM Tivoli Software. “Human identity and authentication systems are only valuable when they can be trusted. IBM’s focus on identity assurance integrates access management, data security and compliance capabilities into the critical processes that improve trust and confidence in business transactions.”

Billions of identities used in business and social networking environments -- ranging from passwords, employee badges, driver’s licenses and stronger forms of authentication -- are used each day to complete various types of transactions both on-line and in-person, granting individuals a wide range of physical and digital access privileges. As the number of identities and related theft rates increase exponentially, the ability for organizations and individuals to trust that people, in fact, “are who they say they are” has become paramount, particularly in the global economy. While passwords are sufficient in social networking environments, higher levels of authentication are required in business-level transactions.

“Strong authentication is an important part of identity assurance, especially for healthcare,” said Michael Day, director of IT for Daughters of Charity. “We use IBM Tivoli Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-on with our building access badge to ensure we know who is accessing critical healthcare information. This solution allows us to raise security while enhancing time to information.”

IBM is the leading provider of security and risk management technologies and expertise. IBM’s dedicated research, software, hardware, services and global business partner network helps clients around the world secure their business operations and deploy comprehensive risk management programs. Today IBM is announcing solutions with independent software vendors to address strong authentication. The offerings expand upon and complement IBM’s trusted identity initiative and its Tivoli Security, Risk and Compliance Management Portfolio.

IBM has worked with business partners Arcot, Gemalto, and L-1 Identity Solutions on integrated solutions that demonstrate IBM’s ability to support strong, multi-factor authentication -- the process of verifying the identity of a person or entity.

Arcot A-OK On-Demand integrated with IBM Tivoli Access Manager for e-business protects and verifies identities using a combination of risk-based and strong authentication so that only authorized users gain access to their confidential, proprietary, or regulated data. The integration makes strong authentication significantly easier to implement without changing a user’s sign-on behavior and protects users from phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks without installing new hardware or software. For more information on the Arcot A-OK On-Demand for IBM Tivoli Access Manager for e-business, visit: http://www.arcot.com/products/a-ok/ibm.

Gemalto has worked with IBM’s trusted identity initiative to integrate strong authentication capabilities, best practices and use cases for protecting and securing personal identities and assets. The Gemalto Protiva Strong Authentication Solution features a broad range of personal security devices that use smart card technology for One-Time Password (OTP) and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate authentication and are available in card and USB token form factors. The integrated strong authentication solution with identity and access management helps protect identities and enterprise information systems against phishing attacks, key logging, shoulder surfing and stolen passwords.

L-1 Identity Solutions multi-biometric technologies (including any combination of finger, face, palm and iris recognition) are integrated into IBM systems to meet any customer’s requirement for protecting and securing identities and assets. L-1’s secure credentialing solutions integrate personalization and enhanced security features into a wide variety of credentials. Access control readers from L-1 utilize state-of-the-art finger and face recognition technologies, including 3D face, for more secure access to building and facilities. L-1 mobile devices provide highly accurate and fast identifications by capturing a person’s unique biometric and using it to enroll and verify their identity.

“The need for identity assurance is increasingly important, especially when an individual’s personal information is involved,” said Kamal Bherwani, Health & Human Services CIO and Executive Director, City of New York. “The balance between data security and ease of access to relevant information can be better achieved with strong authentication integrated into the fabric of IT applications. New cloud-based technologies have also made it easier to enable enterprise middleware applications with strong authentication credentials provisioned from the cloud, creating a more feasible model for deploying online client based transactions.”

IBM’s Trusted Identity Centers of Excellence in Dallas, San Jose, Bangalore and LaGaude, France, extend IBM’s identity management capabilities, focusing on improving trust and confidence in human identity systems. The centers offer services leaders, architects, and developer expertise in the processes and technologies that deliver a trusted identity lifecycle.

At the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit November 10-12, IBM will be presenting its strategy for authentication and human identity systems and point to existing products, partner integrations, and breakthrough advances being made at its Trusted Identity Centers of Excellence.

For more information, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/tivoli.