Enterprise Air and Tumbleweed present jointly-developed Physical Access Control System Validation Service solution for HSPD-12 cards
DALLAS, TEXAS - April 16, 2007 - Enterprise Air and Tumbleweed today announced a partnership to provide a complete, turnkey solution for performing automatic certificate checks on HSPD-12 ID cards. This solution, known as the PACS Validation Service, enables a government agency to perform automatic, daily tests on the HSPD-12 access cards used by their employees, contractors and visitors, thereby fulfilling a crucial FIPS-201 requirement.
"Government agencies need to overcome a lot of obstacles before they can benefit from the HSPD-12 card standard" said Michael Hejtmanek, CEO of Enterprise Air. "The electronic certificates on these cards make them vastly more secure; unfortunately, most of the systems that control electronic doors and gates weren't designed to perform a certificate check. So we've created a system to do it for them - one that can connect to the access control system, checks certificates automatically, and revoke cardholder privileges as needed - so that government agencies don't have to replace their existing equipment."
The PACS Validation Service works by first creating a reference list that can match certificates to badge IDs, and vice versa. The system then periodically checks every certificate in the list; if a certificate has been revoked, the PACS Validation Service revokes the corresponding badge in the access control system. From that point on, every card reader throughout the building will automatically deny access to the cardholder.
The new solution builds on the strengths of both companies' products. Enterprise Air's Physical Security Interconnect (PSI) platform provides broad compatibility with the most popular physical access control systems (PACS) in use today. Tumbleweed's Validation Authority and VA Monitoring API provide a seamless, scalable method for monitoring any number of Certificate Authorities and CA bridges, in any network configuration. Both companies' components are built to be secure, fault-tolerant, and easily configured.
"Our partnership with Enterprise Air will enhance security for all physical access systems," said Jim Scullion, chief executive officer at Tumbleweed. "Now agencies have a consolidated approach to digital and physical access credentials that will keep them safer, and ease the previous complexities of access card management."
