Evidian, European leader in Identity and Access Management (IAM), today announces the launch of WiseGuard 3G (third-generation), the latest component of its AccessMaster software suite. This innovative software solution responds to the needs of both public and private sector organizations who want to reinforce access control to applications and enhance their audit capabilities, particularly to guarantee compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II and LCNE, while increasing user productivity.

“Today, the growing risks from cyber-vandalism, fraud, industrial espionage… and the increase in regulations are generating greatly renewed interest in strong authentication and enterprise single sign-on (E-SSO) solutions that both reinforce and simplify user access to applications” explains Evidian’s Managing Director Hassan Maad. “Current solutions, however, have numerous limitations when it comes to integration with existing business processes and detailed security administration. With WiseGuard 3G, Evidian overcomes these constraints, while also delivering rapid ROI.”

WiseGuard 3G, the key innovation: advanced access rights management
With its new Extended Manager component, WiseGuard 4.5 (3G) offers a graphical, intuitive distributed control desk. Based on an RBM (Role-Based Management) model, Extended Manager provides sophisticated security administration tools that enable the SSO to be finely tuned to the realities of key business processes (delegated authority between users, multiple accounts for individual users, different means of authentication depending on the sensitivity of each application in terms of security or the user access point) and administrative requirements (from the most decentralized to the most federal approaches to management). In addition, Extended Manager provides powerful analysis and reporting tools for auditors, essential to guarantee and provide evidence of regulatory compliance.

A simple response to security and productivity challenges
Reflecting years of experience and innovations in E-SSO, WiseGuard plugs the gap between traditional SSO tools and corporate business policies. The first and second generation of SSO tools only provided basic single sign-on functions. With its third-generation SSO solution, Evidian enables organizations to achieve the balance between security and user friendliness that matches their own business needs as closely as possible.

A global enterprise SSO solution: as an open solution, WiseGuard adapts to the specific needs of each business, and is instantaneously integrated with any application using “drag and drop”. In addition, WiseGuard is the only solution available to offer integrated lifecycle administration tools for strong authentication methods such as smart cards, USB keys, etc.

High levels of security, focused around business policies: WiseGuard–including much more sophisticated administration functions than those offered by the other solutions on the market–enables management, delegation and audit to be controlled easily and simply. Its key advantages are that management can be focused around functional needs and properly aligned with the organization of the business

Immense flexibility: as a completely flexible and distributed solution, WiseGuard natively integrates with corporate directories and uses their existing organizational structures, whether the business is running Microsoft Active Directory or ADAM, Sun JS Directory Server, Novell e-Directory, IBM Tivoli Directory Server, OpenLDAP or any other LDAP V3 directory.

“With WiseGuard 3G, we offer organizations the first flexible E-SSO solution that enables regulatory compliance without compromises” Hassan Maad concludes. “That’s a key business advantage at a time when regulatory developments have forced effective security to become an essential condition of good business performance, and when information systems are increasingly open and complex!”

Availability and price
WiseGuard 3G is available for Windows XP, 2000 and 2003 workstations. For thin clients, WiseGuard is also available in the Windows Terminal Server and Citrix (MetaFrame, Presentation Server and NFuse) environments. The user management, organizational and security storage LDAP directory can be Active Directory Windows 2000/2003, ADAM, Sun Java System Directory Server, Novell eDirectory, IBM Tivoli Directory Server or OpenLDAP. For 1000 users, the retail base version of WiseGuard starts at around €50 per user. When all the optional functions are added on–including the advanced administration functions–this increases to €73 per user.

About WiseGuard
An open E-SSO solution, WiseGuard can be deployed on its own or integrated with the majority of identity management solutions on the market today. Naturally, it offers native integration with Evidian’s modular identity and access management (IAM) suite, which offers numerous complementary functions including Web/J2EE access control (Evidian Secure Access Manager Web Edition and J2EE Edition), identity management (Evidian Identity Manager) and user provisioning (Evidian Provisioning Manager).