Ping Identity Enables Government Agencies to Securely Collaborate Across Agencies and Contractors

November 15, 2006; 06:24 AM
Ping Identity Corporation announced today a new initiative designed to meet the unique cross-domain credentialing and federated identity needs of government agencies. Elements of this initiative include new capabilities now available in Ping Identity’s flagship product, PingFederate™, as well as certification that PingFederate is compliant with the US General Services Administration’s e-Authentication Initiative. Furthermore, in a companion release also issued today, Ping Identity announced a significant federated identity management contract award with the Regional Information Sharing Systems program administered by the US Department of Justice.

Government agencies have a delicate balancing act to maintain between collaborating with one another to streamline services while simultaneously maintaining information integrity and security in today’s climate of increased identity theft and homeland vulnerability. Federated identity management plays an essential role in allowing secure collaboration across agency as well as public/private sector organizational boundaries by providing cross-domain credentialing, the ability for identity information from one security domain to be efficiently and securely shared with other security domains.

“Ping Identity is committed to delivering technology and services that enable government agencies to manage this delicate balance between collaboration and compliance,” said Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity. “In partnership with our government customers, we have added powerful capabilities to PingFederate that are specifically designed to serve the organizations that support our citizens.”

New Government-Specific Capabilities in PingFederate

GSA E-Authentication Certification – PingFederate is certified for use within the US General Services Administration E-Authentication Initiative. The E-Authentication Initiative supports SAML-based Identity Federations among government agencies as well as between the public and private sectors. This certification follows Ping Identity’s recent announcement that PingFederate has been certified by the Liberty Alliance as being conformant with the SAML 2.0 specification. For more information on the E-Authentication Initiative, go to http://cio.gov/eauthentication. To download the E-Authentication-certified version of PingFederate, go to http://www.pingidentity.com/products/pingfederate/download.

Hardware Security Module Integration – PingFederate 4.1 gives customers the option of integrating with a Hardware Security Module (HSM) for the storage of private and public keys. The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140 specification requires that a compliant HSM handle generation and storage of all private key data. PingFederate works with SafeNet’s Luna SA HSM, which meets FIPS 140-2 and 140-3 requirements.

"SafeNet has an ongoing commitment to securing industry-leading solutions for the federal government for more than 20 years," said Chris Fedde, president and COO, SafeNet. "We are proud to have been chosen by Ping Identity as the HSM security provider for their federal initiative."

Support for X.509 Attribute Sharing Profile (XASP) – Many organizations have made a significant investment in Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to provide a stronger form of authentication for their users. The SAML XASP profile enables relying party applications that have successfully authenticated the user with a digital certificate to go back to the organization that issued the digital certificate (the Identity Provider) and retrieve dynamic or sensitive user attributes that are not or should not be included with the certificate. Rather than investing in heavy directory synchronization technology, XASP support in PingFederate 4.1 enables the relying party application to retrieve these attributes in real time to enable personalization functionality or to facilitate application-level authorization decisions.

Federal Partner/Contract Vehicles

Ping Identity's products are included on Advantaged Solutions, Inc. GSA Group 70 Schedule Contract number GS-35F-0926R. Advantaged Solutions, Inc. is also an SBA-certified HUBZone Small Disadvantaged Business. To contact Advantaged Solutions, Inc. regarding Ping Identity products, please call 202-204-3083, or email [email protected].

About PingFederate

Award-winning PingFederate is a standalone federation server with multi-protocol capabilities for SAML 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 and WS-Federation single sign-on. PingFederate can be downloaded directly from Ping Identity at http://www.pingidentity.com. PingFederate is certified Liberty Alliance SAML 2.0 interoperable and GSA E-Authentication compliant. For more information, please contact Ping Identity toll-free at + 1 877.898.2905 or +1 303.468.2882, or email [email protected].

About Ping Identity Corporation

Ping Identity is uniquely dedicated to delivering Internet Identity software and services that are transforming how organizations work with employees, customers and business partners. Our open and flexible approach offers best-of-breed software complemented with best-in-class service that exceeds the ever-expanding needs of customers like Boeing, Cisco, New York Life and Pulte Homes. Sign on to Ping Identity; sign on to what’s next. For more information, please visit www.pingidentity.com.

Ping Identity Corporation, Mike Donaldson, 303-468-2858, [email protected], or Groshelle Communications, Heidi Groshelle, 415-563-1893, [email protected]