Gemalto Smart Cards

The time has come when user accounts with special rights on a network should be required to use Smart Card authentication.

The main reason is to protect against misuse of the account if the password becomes known. This can happen easily with lax practices. It can also happen in several less obvious ways, for example:

• if the same password is used at Internet sites as on the LAN
• if software is installed on a PC to capture passwords.

Smart cards make account misuse much more difficult. The user's personal digital certificate is stored in the smart card. You need to have the smart card in your possession and to know the PIN number to use it, just like a bank card.

Smart card authentication is now built in to Vista and Windows Server 2008, making it much easier to use.

We provide smart card technology from Gemalto. Gemalto provides a range of devices to hold the smart card, including the innovative Smart Enterprise Guardian with 2GB of encrypted storage. Gemalto smart cards can be administered with Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007.

Gemalto smart cards can be used to provide strong authentication for Citrix, for remote access and even for building access.

Contact us if you would like discuss a project to implement Smart Cards in your organisation.