Julian Ashbourn

This USB token offers two-factor authentication that has been considered from many perspectives, including that of the user.

We've reviewed this product before, (albeit a slightly earlier software revision), but make no apologies for including it as a solid two-factor authentication solution.

An ingenious little device from Meganet Corporation to enable secure portable data storage, the USB token incorporates a fingerprint biometric sensor and a simple interface of 3 LEDs to inform the user of status.

The NEC TouchPass system will appeal to systems administrators looking to integrate biometric verification into the organizational network access security routines.

The SafeGuard Biometrics product is straightforward in concept and execution, making use of smartcard and biometric technology to provide strong identity verification for workstation and network access, as well as making the same functionality available to other services such as email clients and the use of certificates.

Guardware produces a variety of innovative products, all of which have been well received. It was interesting, therefore, to see a keyboard product with integral fingerprint reader from this Hungarian company (although the keyboard is actually made in China).

The U.are.U Pro for Active Directory from Digital Persona is, as its name suggests, a product to bring biometric identity verification to a Windows Active Directory environment (including Windows Server 2003). It may be fully integrated at server level or used on a standalone workstation.

This product concentrates on hard disk data encryption. However , it does include a VPN client integration for IPCrytor VPN gateways, which is a remote access solution. Encryption may be in relation to your own local hard drive, or a specific directory or folder on the corporate LAN.

First, allow us to congratulate Datakey on a most comprehensive and clearly written set of user guides. This is an important factor for many users and yet so often overlooked in contemporary products. For those as yet unfamiliar with smartcards and tokens, this can be very helpful and save them a lot of time as they progress along their own particular learning curve.

ActivCard Gold provides the expected functionality for securing the desktop, remote network access and access to web services, via digital signatures stored upon a smartcard. Appropriate software utilities are provided to manage these functions. However, the ActivCard approach goes one stage further by adding biometrics technology to the mix.

Authenex Strong Authentication System (ASAS) is described as a network security application that provides strong (two-factor) authentication for remote, VPN and web access. This would appear to sum things up quite well and Authenex provides a variety of software tools to support this goal.

The Schlumberger DeXa.Badge is not so much a single product, more of a secure identity philosophy. Potential use of the associated chip cards could range from simple intranet/internet secure login, to a full blown certificate-based enterprise deployment for local and remote access, physical access control and other related applications.

Another USB token approach, this time from Feitian Technologies, a company based in Beijing, China. The ePass2000 product comes attractively packaged with the software, printed user's guide, a USB token (in this case the ePass2000 with 1024-bit key functionality), overview brochures and even a mouse mat. This may give an impression of an off-the-shelf consumer oriented product, but the ePass offering is actually quite comprehensive.

The Aladdin eToken is a small, lightweight, attractive USB device, about the size of a physical key, which can generate and store user credentials such as private keys, passwords and digital certificates within its own protected chip environment.

RSA is usually associated with token solutions, providing dynamic one-time password facilities plugged into back end authentication servers like RSA's ACE/ Server. But there are times when a token is not ideal: you have lease costs to consider, the server-side requirements are relatively high and inexperienced users can find one-time passwords tricky to handle.

The SafeWord PremierAccess product immediately impresses as a solution that has been well considered from the outset. Developed around the dynamic password concept, it may nevertheless support smartcards and other tokens, and even biometrics. These methodologies may be mixed and matched depending upon the needs of the enterprise.

I suppose this review may be thought of as two. The SecuGen EyeD Hamster fingerprint biometric reader and the SecuIBAS 'internet' authentication suite software.