NW_20000118_en_DUKE University enrolls with VASCO's SnareWorks for True Single Sign-on Security
RSA DATA SECURITY CONFERENCE, SAN JOSE, Calif. -- January 18, 2000 -- Later this year, when any of the more than 40,000 students, faculty members, employees and some alumni at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina conduct business over the university network and the Internet, their information and transactions from start to finish will be secured by SnareWorks™ software. Offered by the IntelliSoft division of VASCO Data Security International, Inc. (OTCBB: VDSI.OB; Booths 435 and 1211), the SnareWorks family provides organizations with true Single-Sign-On (SSO), PKI, web portal, access control, and user administration security.
Like many organizations today, Duke is replacing host-based business applications and major IT systems housed on mainframes with client/server-based business applications housed on Unix and NT platforms. The security ramifications of moving financial and student record transactions across an insecure network drove the university to investigate network-based security and authentication solutions – while the projected proliferation of electronic identities resulting from shifting to a multiple-server paradigm led them to also investigate Single Sign-On solutions.
"We needed a network security and secure SSO solution which supported our enterprise applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Lotus Notes without re-engineering or re-coding," noted Rob Carter, Director of Systems Administration for Duke University. "We also required support for Single Sign-On for web-based interfaces to those same applications, and interoperability with an existing 40,000-user Kerberos V infrastructure, already in place on campus. SnareWorks was far and away the best enterprise security solution we evaluated."
According to Carter, the university’s security team evaluated solutions from several market-leading Single Sign-On and network security vendors, and also considered the feasibility of developing an in-house solution. Three factors made SnareWorks the overwhelming choice of the Duke team:
True SSO. SnareWorks was the only secure Single Sign-On solution that provided genuine single sign-on out of the box, across all platforms and applications.
Speed and ease of securing the enterprise. Duke could implement SnareWorks across multiple platforms and multiple applications, quickly and easily, without modifying a single line of application code. This included not only widely used applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Lotus Notes, but also applications specific to educational use, such as CourseInfo.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). By providing a single sign-on facility which spans multiple enterprise-wide applications and systems on campus, Duke expects to significantly lower the TCO for these systems, both by reducing the time required to provision new employees and students and by reducing the time and effort individual users spend authenticating to disparate systems during a normal work-day.
"As a university, we're bound by law to take all possible precautions to protect the privacy and security of student information," observed Carter. "SnareWorks allows us to meet that mandate while leveraging the benefits of network-based information delivery tools."
Jonathan Chinitz, General Manager of VASCO’s IntelliSoft division, noted that the complexity of Duke’s security infrastructure is repeated at virtually every company and government body today – a situation that many security vendors cannot adequately address. "Organizations looking for enterprise-wide security require products which span the spectrum of client/server, web and mainframe architectures, with implementations that don’t place a burden on their resources," he said. "Duke University simply represents one example of how the SnareWorks ‘speed-to-security’ advantage can help companies secure their enterprise quickly, easily, and affordably."
About VASCO
VASCO helps organizations rapidly and effectively secure their e-business and e-commerce applications and services. The company’s family of Digipass™, VACMAN®, and SnareWorks™ products offers end-to-end security through true Single Sign-On, PKI, web security, strong user authentication, access control, user administration and encryption solutions that also sharply reduce the time and effort required to deploy and manage them. With hundreds of financial institutions, blue-chip corporations, and government agencies as customers in more than 50 countries, VASCO Data Security is a global leader in security solutions that support the Internet economy. More information is available at www.vasco.com and www.isoft.com.
About Duke University
Duke University is one of America’s leading research universities. It has a historic commitment to undergraduate education, strong graduate and professional programs and conducts research in many fields. Duke's hospital is the flagship of the broader Duke University Health System, which includes two community hospitals and other healthcare services. Visit Duke online at www.duke.edu.
Forward Looking Statements
Statements made in this news release that relate to future plans, events or performances are forward-looking statements. Any statement containing words such as "believes," "anticipates," "plans," or "expects" is forward-looking, and these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations. Consequently, actual results could differ materially from the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements.
For more information please contact:
Americas:
Media: Kerry Roche, Bridgeman Communications, +1 617 742 7270, [email protected]
Investor Relations: Todd Fromer, KCSA Public Relations Worldwide, +1 212 682 6300, [email protected]
VASCO: Mike Lange, +1 630 932 8844, [email protected]
Europe/Asia:
Media (Benelux): Bob Pieters, Anthonissen & Associates, +32 3 286 7777, [email protected]
Media (Europe/Asia): Sven Kersten, HBI, +49 89 99 38 87 33, [email protected]
Investor Relations: Annemieke Blondeel, LBConsult, +44 208 308 7080, [email protected]
VASCO: Ariane Bosmans, +32 2 456 9810, [email protected]