Hitachi ID Systems Releases Password Manager 7.0

CALGARY, July 28. Hitachi ID Systems, Inc., a leading provider of identity and access management solutions, has released Password Manager 7.0, the market's first true authentication management platform, able to manage any and every authentication factor employed by a corporate user.

Hitachi ID Password Manager (formerly P-Synch) 7.0 is a major retooling of the application that provides stronger security, better scalability, enhanced user adoption and improved ROI. It leverages Hitachi ID Systems' latest identity management technology platform, with a SQL Server or Oracle back-end, a real-time data replication service, high performance data updates via stored procedures and Unicode support.

Password Manager 7.0 is the first release where telephone-based password and PIN reset (Hitachi ID Telephone Password Manager) and enterprise single sign-on (Hitachi ID Login Manager) are included in the base product and price. "Password Manager 7.0 was designed from the ground up to be the most advanced platform for managing authentication factors," said Idan Shoham, Hitachi ID Systems CTO. "We used our next-generation technology platform to get the best possible scalability, flexibility and reliability. We then added capabilities to support one-stop management of all of a user's authentication factors -- passwords, security questions, OTP tokens, smart cards, voice biometrics, hard disk encryption keys and more."

  Password Manager 7.0 introduces a series of significant new features:
  -  Authentication chains, supporting context-sensitive and multi-step
     processes for validating user identity. Examples include:
     -  Protecting Extranet-facing deployments against attack by robots
        using CAPTCHAs.
     -  Leveraging mobile phones as an authentication factor.
     -  Integrating with consumer authentication services from vendors such
        as VeriSign or RSA.
  -  User classes for flexible delegation of security rights. Examples
     include:
     -  Regional help desks with local authority to reset passwords.
     -  Empowering managers to reset passwords for their (direct or
        indirect) subordinates.
  -  A password synchronization service on Windows servers, which minimizes
     the code running in the operating system kernel and supports advanced
     features such as user filtering and a retry queue.
  -  Enhancements to the managed user enrollment system, enabling large
     organizations to control the pace at which users are invited to
     complete their profiles.
  -  Many new reports to track user profiles and login accounts, orphan and
     dormant accounts, enrollment progress and more.
  -  Official support for Windows 7 clients, including 64-bit versions.

Password Manager ships with connectors for over 100 types of systems and applications including common on-premises systems such as Active Directory and SAP and cloud-hosted systems such as Google Applications and WebEx. It also includes integrations with the Windows login process, 10 types of help desk incident management applications, e-mail systems, full disk encryption products and more.