Source: Open Solutions
As part of its ongoing efforts to thwart identity theft and ensure clients have the best tools to defend against online fraud attacks, Open Solutions is now a distributor for the Entrust [NASDAQ: ENTU] versatile authentication platform, Entrust IdentityGuard, a component of a strong layered security strategy.
As a trusted and leading provider of financial service technology, Open Solutions will leverage the Entrust IdentityGuard versatile authentication platform — specifically the solution's grid card authenticator — to offer its clients identity theft and fraud protection. To date, Open Solutions has deployed the grid card to more than 170,000 users and more than 70 financial institutions leverage the Entrust IdentityGuard platform for strong authentication.
"As financial institutions continue to be targeted by online fraud attacks, consumers now expect financial services providers to deploy stronger security measures to protect their information and identities online," said Mike Nicastro, SVP and chief marketing officer, Open Solutions. "The Entrust IdentityGuard grid-based authentication solution affords financial institutions the ability to offer a low-cost option that has increased usability, high user acceptance and fast deployment."
With eight million licenses sold, Entrust IdentityGuard is an open, versatile authentication platform that provides one of the widest ranges of authentication capabilities on the market today. The solution enables enterprises to layer security across diverse users, transactions and applications — all according to risk assessment. It is a common-sense approach to strong authentication that allows organizations to apply the right level of strong authentication tailored to the assessed risk for the access or transaction that the user is performing. An organization can layer open versatile authentication methods — including physical authentication and mutual authentication — across different users and transaction types. Additional Entrust IdentityGuard authentication options include one-time-password tokens, IP-geolocation, questions and answers, out-of-band, one-time passcodes and mutual authentication.
"This agreement provides Open Solutions' clients with the Entrust IdentityGuard versatile authentication platform and serves as an invaluable channel for us to help organizations with key solutions that support a layered security strategy," said Entrust Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Conner. "As a result of Open Solutions' leadership position in the banking and credit union marketplace, this relationship will help us further serve this segment of the industry."
With grid authentication, an additional factor is deployed to the user based on an assortment of characters in a row/column format printed on a card. This innovative authentication method has been recognized by a patent awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office.
Using grid authentication, the susceptibility to phishing, man-in-the-middle or malware attacks can be substantially reduced. Even if the user is subject to repeated attacks, the large number of potential challenges and responses for any given user can help significantly reduce the effectiveness of these attacks. Attacks that record several logins will only be exposed to a small portion of the authentication grid.