Office solutions

Many Information Technology (IT) organizations are provided with very limited budgets and resources yet face the difficult task of providing the most secure and reliable solutions for a variety of users satisfying their, often conflicting, requirements. If you are facing such a dilemma, Astrosoft MatchLogon is a security solution that you should evaluate for your office. The following are some of the criteria that are usually used in such an evaluation:

• SECURITY
  The main purpose of an authentication system is to ensure security but it is important to analyze security requirements and to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken depending on the value of the resources to be protected and the security threat. Astrosoft MatchLogon enables you to implement a range of security levels to match your security requirements up to the most stringent levels. With the MatchLogon solution, complete control over password policies eliminates the "human factor" from the list of security challenges, users are no longer allowed to use passwords and therefore won't be able to share or forget passwords. The problem of stolen passwords is also eliminated. MatchLogon provides a common platform that enables you to easily implement solutions that replace passwords authentication ranging from tokens that are also used for physical access to fingerprint, facial, iris or retinal scan recognition.
  
  
• FLEXIBILITY
  Different groups of users often have preferences for using different authentication methods or devices. It is important that the solution you chose provides the flexibility to support the preferred method of authentication for different groups of users. The same flexibility is also important in providing the appropriate authentication to support different security requirements or for the implementation of a variety of corporate security policies. MatchLogon provides a flexible platform which can easily accommodate the different preferences for authentication methods. New authentication devices can be added at any time without the need to re-engineer the system, purchase additional software or re-train users, again and again.
  
  
• CONVENIENCE
  User convenience and security are often inversely related, in a hidden way. If users find that security measures are inconvenient they will not cooperate with them and thus may compromise security. Although MatchLogon supports the implementation of very stringent security measures, these can also be made very convenient for users. Network and Application logons become more convenient when there is no need to change or remember your passwords. Just put your finger on a scanner, use your RFID security smart-card/token or briefly use an iris scanning device.
  
  
• SPEED OF AUTHENTICATION
  Closely linked to user convenience is the issue of speed of authentication. Users frequently need rapid access to their computers or network. With MatchLogon, verification of your fingerprint (or other biometric) or the authentication data from a smart-card takes less than a one second. This is much faster than using a password.
  
  
• COST EFFECTIVENESS
  Given the tight budgets allocated to IT organizations today, it is essential that solutions be cost effective. Several MatchLogon customers have been enabled to implement very cost effective solutions because of the flexibility provided by the system. For example, one major customer already had implemented RFID access cards for physical access control for their employees. With MatchLogion it was possible to re-use the RFID card to control access to personal computers and the corporate network for general users. More stringent security was added by requiring fingerprint verification for users of sensitive systems. Perhaps the best way to evaluate the cost effectiveness of using MatchLogon is to build a business case to compare the cost of using passwords versus the use of a MatchLogon system which replaces passwords and provides better security. Several industry reports indicate that the cost of maintaining password systems and the cost of providing help desk support can be substantial. For example, it has been estimated that for an organization with about 1,000 users, the cost can amount to $150,000 per year. For a small company with 100 users, the cost is estimated at $15,000 per year. Given that such costs are associated with the use of passwords, the savings from deploying a MatchLogon solution repay the cost of the investment within a short period of time and the Return on Investment can be shown to be substantial over a longer time period.