Entrust Customer Grupo Financiero Ficohsa a Leader, Innovator in Mobile Authentication

Central American bank expanding Entrust IdentityGuard platform for comprehensive, layered security with mobile capabilities

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Entrust, Inc.

Aug 17, 2011, 08:03 ET

DALLAS, Aug. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrust, Inc., customer Grupo Financiero Ficohsa is taking a proactive stance in securing customer identities by expanding their strong authentication solution to include mobile authentication via Entrust IdentityGuard Mobile software tokens. An Entrust customer since 2007, Ficohsa's strong market and technology leadership in Central America is further strengthened by migrating users to soft tokens on mobile platforms.

"Our organization is always conscious of new or advanced technology that will better serve, and secure, our valued customers," said Sergio Stefan VP of Consumer Banking and Small and Medium Business, at Grupo Financiero Ficohsa. "The use of mobile authentication — specifically soft tokens — is a natural fit into our customers' lifestyles. They'll be more likely to adopt the authentication method and feel more secure banking with us, regardless of the channel or platform."

Ficohsa, based in Honduras, currently uses the Entrust IdentityGuard versatile authentication platform to manage more than 15,000 custom-branded hardware tokens as part of a layered security approach. Like Ficohsa's strategy, layering security is proven to help defend against attacks that target token-only schemes, and reduces costs by leveraging mobile devices already owned by banking customers. The financial institution will begin with a limited pilot of the mobile authentication technology before finalizing a more widespread deployment strategy.

"We commend Ficohsa for being a proactive organization that takes the security of customer identities and banking transactions seriously," said Entrust President and CEO Bill Conner. "By expanding the types of available authenticators, Ficohsa further enhances security with a layered approach and also reduces costs associated with shipping, distribution and hardware purchase."

Entrust strongly recommends organizations move away from outdated, token-only security to comprehensive, layered security strategies than are proven to stop advanced online attacks. As recent, high-profile breaches have shown, token-only approaches are easily defeated.

"More banks and financial institutions should migrate to platform-based authentication to help defend against attacks on token-only security schemes," said Conner. "Hardware tokens are still effective as a strong authenticator, but only when used as a single component to a broader, multilayered security strategy."

Entrust enables organizations to layer security — according to access requirements or the risk of a given transaction — across diverse users and applications. Entrust's authentication capabilities include smartcards and USB tokens, soft tokens, grid cards and eGrids, IP-geolocation, questions and answers, out-of-band one-time passcode (delivered via voice, SMS or email), and a range of one-time-passcode tokens. In addition, digital certificates are used on mobile devices, in software and on smartcards and USB tokens.

This expanded authentication agreement was facilitated by local Entrust partner Sistemas Eficientes S.A. (SEFISA), a respected security solutions integrator in Honduras and throughout Central America. SEFISA will play an integral part in the deployment and migration to the new authentication scheme.

Founded in 1994, Grupo Financiero Ficohsa (Ficohsa Financial Group) is a leader in banking service and product offerings, embracing an innovative spirit and maintaining leadership in technological advances for financial transactions.

In 2005, the Honduras National Banks and Securities Commission authorized the establishment and operation of the Ficohsa Financial Group that comprised of four leaders in the national and regional markets: Ficohsa Bank SA, Ficohsa Seguros SA, Ficohsa House and Exchange, and Ficohsa Casa de Bolsa. Through these groups, Ficohsa provides Honduras retail and corporate banking, insurance, investments, brokerage services and more.

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About Entrust

A trusted provider of identity-based security solutions, Entrust empowers enterprises, governments, financial institutions, citizens and websites in more than 4,000 organizations spanning 60 countries. Entrust's customer-centric focus is the foundation to delivering organizations an unmatched level of security, trust and value. For strong authentication, credentialing, physical and logical access, mobile security, digital certificates, SSL and PKI, call 888-690-2424, email [email protected] or visit www.entrust.com. Let's talk.

Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. In Canada, Entrust is a registered trademark of Entrust Limited. All Entrust product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Entrust, Inc. or Entrust Limited. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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Bill Conner
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SOURCE Entrust, Inc.