Banco Central del Ecuador, a valued long-time Entrust (NASDAQ:ENTU) customer from Latin America, chose three key Entrust security components as part of their layered security strategy - Entrust TruePass for zero-footprint public key infrastructure (PKI) capabilities; Entrust GetAccess for Web single sign-on (SSO); and the Entrust IdentityGuard versatile authentication platform for a range of strong authentication capabilities.

Entrust and Banco Central del Ecuador have enjoyed a strong working relationship for three years, which has established a solid baseline of product and service excellence from Entrust. The capabilities leveraged to protect the bank's latest online service deployment, coupled with Entrust's proven support and service capabilities, served as key differentiators that set Entrust apart from other security vendors. Banco Central del Ecuador found the entire Entrust solution portfolio to be easy to use and cost-efficient.

"Our primary objective was to concurrently increase security and end-user efficiency. This suite of Entrust solutions allowed us to address our security goals, increase our brand reputation and instill confidence in our customers," said Banco Central del Ecuador Chief Security Officer Fernando Albuja. "We've had a strong relationship with Entrust in the past, but our latest implementation with them has surpassed our expectations."

Facilitated by partner Latinus E-Professional Business S.A., Banco Central del Ecuador purchased Entrust IdentityGuard to strongly authenticate high-value clients; Entrust TruePass for using PKI to protect sensitive banking information; and Entrust GetAccess for Web access control and single sign-on. Entrust GetAccess is sold using a per-processor pricing model, enabling organizations to leverage proven access control capabilities without concern over how many users are using the solution at any given time.

"Banco Central del Ecuador is a prime example of a proactive organization implementing a layered approach that addresses their short- and long-term security objectives while increasing the ease of use for their customers,"
said Entrust Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Conner. "Layering Entrust's range of security capabilities is a natural way to help Banco Central del Ecuador seamlessly protect sensitive transactions today - and in the future as their online security strategy evolves."

Leveraging Entrust TruePass, Banco Central del Ecuador issues and manages PKI digital certificates for each bank in Ecuador. Each day, the banks electronically report their deposits and transfers to Banco Central del Ecuador, using their PKI digital certificate to identify themselves and then encrypt the sensitive financial information.

Entrust TruePass is a zero-footprint solution that allows each bank to leverage digital certificates using only a Web browser, while still enabling transparent encryption to protect the privacy of information beyond the SSL session. Entrust TruePass also can be used to digitally sign submitted data, which helps protect information from being modified while in transit or stored in an organization's database.

Entrust GetAccess protects access to sensitive banking information, incorporating proven authorization and single sign-on capabilities to secure Banco Central del Ecuador's Web site. It is a proven, high-performance Web access control solution, centrally managing access to multiple applications through a single portal and providing users with single sign-on to the applications and content they're authorized to see. Entrust GetAccess supports leading-edge capabilities - including SAML 2.0 for identity federation - and is deployed across the globe in many multimillion-user deployments.

Seamlessly integrated with Entrust GetAccess, Banco Central del Ecuador leverages Entrust IdentityGuard for strong authentication to Web applications. With more than 9.2 million licenses in use today, Entrust IdentityGuard is an open versatile authentication platform that enables organizations to layer authentication - according to access requirements or the risk of a given transaction - across diverse users and applications.

The platform's authentication options include username and password, IP-geolocation, machine/device, questions and answers, out-of-band one-time passcode (delivered via voice, SMS or e-mail), grid cards and a range of one-time-password tokens.