Thales today announced that its award-winning SafeSign authentication platform has been updated to support the new OATH (Initiative for Open Authentication) standard for token-based authentication. OATH is an industry initiative designed to provide an open and royalty-free specification for strong authentication to help combat the continuing rise of identity theft around the world. As SafeSign is an open, flexible authentication platform that supports any form of authentication, including tokens, it is important that Thales includes OATH compatibility within its architecture.
In its second year of existence and with 90 vendors participating in the scheme, OATH is beginning to have a positive impact upon token-based authentication. The participating token vendors will see increased uptake of their OATH-compliant products and customers will see token costs fall as the marketplace becomes highly competitive. The effect of this upon the token industry is that the vendors are beginning to seek new means of differentiation in order to remain competitive. The primary focus of this investment is into proprietary authentication platforms to be sold alongside the tokens.
As a highly flexible authentication platform that is fully compatible with any identity solution, be it token, PKI certificate, smart card, EMV/CAP or biometrics, SafeSign enables customers to avoid being locked-in to any proprietary authentication system. Indeed, SafeSign brings the added advantage of allowing a customer to mix identity solutions to address different risk categories. This means that a customer can adopt the most appropriate security token or strong authentication solution for either low risk or high risk transactions depending on the business value at risk. Customers will therefore have the highest levels of choice and convenience for their security investment.
As such, Thales’ SafeSign provides customers with a single, central authentication platform with the ability to authenticate users with different security and authentication requirements, ensuring that the most appropriate level of security is applied to transactions. SafeSign can authenticate users and transactions regardless of channel. Already compliant with all of the key global standards, the addition of OATH support means that SafeSign retains its ability to provide flexible compatibility with authentication protocol.
Paul Meadowcroft, head of transaction security at Thales e-Security, said: “SafeSign has now been widely adopted by financial institutions around the world. The success of SafeSign has been largely due to the fact that the solution has flexibility and compatibility at its heart. By including support for the OATH standard, we are ensuring that SafeSign remains fully able to meet any authentication requirement.”
About Thales
Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, serving defence, aerospace and security markets worldwide, supported by a comprehensive services offering. The group’s civil and military businesses develop in parallel to serve a single objective: the security of people, property and nations. Leveraging a global network of high-level researchers, Thales offers a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy critical information systems. Thales employs 60,000 people in 50 countries and generated revenues of € 10.3 billion in 2005, with a record order book of over € 20 billion.
Operating in three main markets covering e-security, card payment and network security, Thales’ e-Security activities address the business, government and finance industries’ need for cryptographic security products and solutions. Over half of the world’s banks, together with the majority of the busiest exchanges, currently use Thales technology. For more than 25 years the company has been at the forefront of security and payment technology, co-operating and contributing to set the industry standards used for financial transactions and e-commerce globally. Thales e-Security activities offer a wide range of security solutions to protect Government and Defence critical information infrastructures, thereby positioning the company as a leading worldwide supplier of certified network security products.
Contacts
Sarah Milligan
Thales
Sarah.milligan@thales-esecurity.com
+44 (0) 1844 204181
Scott McLean/Suzanne Hewitt
Hotwire
scott.mclean@hotwirepr.com
suzanne.hewittt@hotwirepr.com
+44 (0) 20 7608 4643 / 4655
