Review: Aladdin eToken PRO

Aladdin's eToken PRO is a strong and cost-effective two-factor authentication password-management solution. It uses a public key infrastructure to generate and store users' credentials, such as private keys, passwords and digital certificates. To authenticate, users must supply both their personal eToken device and eToken password, providing a critical added level of security to your digital business resources.

We loaded Token Management Systems (TMS), Aladdin's management application, on our test server. The server side did require a substantial amount of work to get all the operating system dependencies and Aladdin components loaded and configured for operation. There was an easy-to-use TMS wizard that walked us through the entire process of final configuration. Once loaded, the TMS provided a nice interface for token enrolment and lifecycle management.

User creation was easy as the TMS provided Microsoft Active Directory integration. The version we tested also had support for OpenLDAP and SQL databases for user management. There were nice options for self-enrolment and password reset through a simple-to-use web-browser interface. Another user benefit was the eToken virtual capability, allowing a user to continue to work when they lose a token.

TMS managed the entire line of hardware and software tokens supported by eToken PRO. Token features included onboard cryptographic processing, security certifications and tamper-evident and water-resistant casing and network logon, VPN, web access, one-time password authentication, secure email and data encryption. The USB tokens could store keys in a secured encrypted area for things such as email encryption.

The reporting and auditing features were very strong and what we would expect from an enterprise solution. There are numerous support options available for a fee. The documentation and online resources were very good.

This was a really complete solution for enterprise strong authentication. It has server-side features for a large enterprise and user-side features to make it easy to use and reduce IT overhead.

For: Nice management solution, numerous features available to the user, attractive price points Against: Didn't find any. Verdict: Definitely one to consider for any enterprise strong authentication project. We give it our Best Buy rating