Latin America. HID Global, a global leader in trusted identification solutions, announced a new version of its credential management system (CMS) that digitizes smart card technology, extends the use of digital certificates in credentials and reaches new platforms that plastic cards do not reach. The new ActivID CMS 5.0 allows people to authenticate their identity to access digital assets without using a physical smart card.
In the long run, HID's new CMS will help strengthen tools to prevent information leaks and create a trusted digital environment. With ActivID CMS 5.0, organizations can have greater confidence in the people who are accessing their networks and conducting digital transactions.
With virtual smart cards and derived credentials introduced into the market, ActivID CMS 5.0 makes IDs more digitally transferable to different cards, phones, and other devices, leverages new Windows software capabilities to simplify credential deployment, and offers the robustness and flexibility that allows customers to manage people's credentials from the cloud.
The U.S. federal government makes extensive use of hid's CMS to manage government id cards (known as personal identity verification cards, or PIV cards). Likewise, the CMS is used by business organizations to strengthen the security of access to their online resources. Several technology and solution partners also rely on HID's CMS for credential management. Customer needs that led to the development of the new Features of ActivID CMS 5.0 include, but are not limited to:
- Eliminate the burden and cost involved in physically provisioning each plastic card to have digital access and having to connect a physical reader to a computer, making implementation easier and cheaper.
- Transfer the same "identification" of a person from a card to a mobile device in an agile way and in accordance with the established regulations.
- Offer a cloud solution for partners to integrate CMS 5.0 functionality into their own cloud platforms.
"Our ActivID 5.0 credential management system is a step forward toward digital identification, responding to the changing expectations of our millions of customers who are currently using CMS 4," said Brad Jarvis, vice president and managing director of HID Global's Identity Management Solutions (IAMS) division.
"With ActivID CMS 5.0, we are adding a higher level of reliability to digital IDs and expanding the types of applications that can benefit from HID's access management and identification solutions, namely Windows login, virtual private networks (RPVs), document signing, encryption, access to online resources, and multi-factor authentication, all without the need for a physical card or attaching a reader."
By making use of a trusted platform module (TPM), a virtual smart card is a secure alternative to smart cards, one-time password (OTP) devices, and other authentication methods. In addition, with the derived credentials, ActivID CMS 5.0 will allow users to use the device of their choice to, for example, read an encrypted email on a mobile phone instead of on a desktop computer. The same process that is commonly performed to issue a physical smart card is used to issue derived credentials, so that customers can be assured that security is preserved while simplifying deployment and reducing costs.
Operating with PIV credentials, ActivID CMS 5.0 is fully compliant with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) FIPS 201 standard, including credentials derived from PIV. HID Global is a market leader in PIV cards used by U.S. federal employees to access government resources online.
