03/13/2008

Arcot Systems announced the immediate availability of Arcot A-OK On-Demand, an authentication solution for on-demand applications. The service provides access security that addresses the risks of stolen passwords.

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A member of the Google Enterprise Professional™ program, Arcot separately announced that Arcot A-OK is immediately available to Google Apps™ Premier Edition (GAPE) customers for one dollar per user per month. The price includes 24/7 email and telephone support. Customers can order Arcot A-OK On-Demand authentication service at www.arcot.com/google.

Arcot hosts all the components necessary to deliver on-demand strong authentication in its data center, eliminating the need for customers to install, manage or maintain any hardware or software on their own servers.

"Arcot already provides on-demand authentication for online payment and operates a SAS 70 certified, PCI DSS-compliant hosting infrastructure," said Ram Varadarajan, CEO of Arcot Systems. "Today we protect 18 million credit card accounts from more than 11,000 financial institutions and 100,000 merchants that participate in the Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode and JCB J/Secure programs. That gives us a solid foundation for our new on-demand authentication service."

According to industry watchers, vulnerability to stolen passwords is a real problem for on-demand applications, also know as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

"A built-in benefit of on-demand software is being able to log in from any Web browser," explains Gretchen Duhaime, senior research analyst at Aberdeen. "The potential downside, however, is the threat of login credentials falling into the wrong hands, and sensitive customer information being exposed. Solving this problem is becoming mandatory for anyone who expects to be Best-in-Class."

Noted Internet security expert Taher Elgamal agrees. "Perhaps one of the weakest links in accessing important Internet assets is a strong tie between the user and the areas they have the right to access. The use of a simple username-password mechanism is truly a weak link. What is unique about Arcot's approach is that it is both strong and people friendly. In fact, it is transparent, so people continue to login as always using usernames and passwords, but with the added security of public key-based mutual authentication underneath," he said. Elgamal, currently CTO for Tumbleweed and an Arcot technical advisor, was a driving force behind SSL, the standard underpinning Internet security today. By providing another strong security layer, Arcot A-OK stops criminals that use phishing, keyboard logging, man-in-the-middle, social engineering and other attacks to steal passwords and exploit them. It protects businesses and individuals, ensuring that only authorized users gain access to online applications and confidential, proprietary or regulated data.

Arcot A-OK On-Demand supports the latest Internet security standards, such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) or OpenID, as well as the standard username/password so organizations of any size can deploy this service with their own on-demand applications in minutes using these interfaces. This also means Arcot A-OK works with any on-demand providers using these standards including salesforce.com and WebEx as well as Google Apps. Salesforce.com customers will soon be able to add Arcot A-OK through AppExchange.

Arcot will use "A-OK" as a security mark, so users will know when they are protected online. In the second half of 2008, Arcot plans to add digital signature on-demand service to Arcot A-OK. In addition to its on-demand service, Arcot offers in-house software for clients who want to host the software themselves, and deliver authentication and digital signature services for on-demand applications.