DALLAS, Dec. 20 - Long a leader in providing public key infrastructure (PKI) technology to governments and enterprises around the world, the managed PKI service from Entrust, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENTU) has made the General Services Administration (GSA) list of approved shared service providers. This status enables Entrust to help federal agencies reap the security benefits of PKI without having to maintain the certification authority (CA) themselves.
"With the mandate of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) for all federal agencies to implement stronger physical and logical access by October 27 this year, we wanted to give a strong security option for organizations without their own CA," said Entrust Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Conner. "Making this list of approved shared services providers allows us to leverage our long leadership in PKI technology to help these agencies do the job right not only for HSPD-12 but for overall improved security."
Entrust Managed Services PKI includes the certificate and security management functions that have set Entrust apart from other vendors in the market including key generation, storage and recovery; certificate and certificate revocation list generation and distribution; certificate update and renewal; and certificate token initialization, programming and management. Additional benefits of Entrust's PKI service include flexible enrollment options, directory services and OCSP services, including hosted responders as needed. Security management functions are provided including security auditing, certificate tracking and archiving.
Because this service will be cross certified with the Federal Bridge, it will allow state governments to interact with federal agencies without having to cross certify themselves. The service also can be leveraged by industry consortiums, giving access to an ecosystem of trust to customers who take advantage of the managed PKI service to meet evolving security needs.
The Entrust Managed Services PKI infrastructure offers high assurance and is fully redundant, thereby eliminating single points of failure and is housed in secure facilities. The Entrust Managed Services PKI leverages intelligent monitoring to quickly detect faults, performance issues and security incidents and the entire infrastructure is archived comprehensively at an off-site facility. CygnaCom Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Entrust, Inc., operates the CA.
"When it comes to secure communication and authentication, PKI really is the gold standard," adds Conner. "We're just making it easier for government agencies, state and local governments and enterprises to take advantage of the benefits of this technology in a flexible and cost effective manner."
As a trusted provider of PKI software and services to government and industry for over ten years, Entrust offers industry-leading solutions combined with unrivaled knowledge of the Federal PKI environment and policies. This technology allows Entrust customers to reap the benefits of PKI's security and transparent ease of use to the end user. As well as serving as the basis of the Federal Bridge Certification Authority, Entrust PKI technology serves customers including the State of Illinois, State of Virginia, the Departments of State, Treasury, Energy and Justice, as well as NASA, the Government Printing Office, US Patent and Trademark Office and the FBI.
For more information about Entrust Managed Services PKI, visit http://www.entrust.com/e_government/shared-service-provider.htm.
