CryptoCard pushes cheaper option

Vendor halves price of CRYPTO-MAS offering and goes on hunt for more "trusted advisers"

Hollister: It is now a no-brainer for people to swap out

CryptoCard is urging firms using ‘expensive’ in-house two-factor authentication (2FA) solutions to swap to a cloud-based model after halving the price of its CRYPTO-MAS offering.

It has also launched a migration agent and has improved service-level guarantees from 99.99 to 99.999 per cent uptime.

Chief executive Neil Hollister claimed the 2FA market was doubling in size every three years and that cloud-based solutions would eventually dominate the market.

“It is now a no-brainer for people to swap out,” he said.

CryptoCard currently has 40 active UK partners and Hollister said the vendor would need more “trusted advisers” to take CRYPTO-MAS to market.

He cited Garter figures predicting that 20 per cent of authentication solutions would be delivered as a managed service by 2011.

“If you go back 18 months, it felt like pushing water uphill. In the past nine months there has been a change and people are now calling us,” he said.

“The overall authentication market is led by RSA Security, Vasco and Aladdin, with ActivIdentity and Entrust in the second tier. But in managed services I would argue we are the leading player.”

ActivIdentity partner Sysec signed up as a CryptoCard reseller four months ago and security consultant Andy Bryars said a cloud-based delivery method made sense for firms that have been forced to roll out 2FA for compliance reasons.

“If it is just a point product to fill a gap, cloud computing with CryptoCard is the perfect fit due to its cost and because firms do not have to skill up,” he said.

In instances where firms want to do more with 2FA, Sysec will still push ActivIdentity, said Bryars.

“Authentication has a high profile so we are looking for channel partners that have trusted relationships with their clients,” added Hollister.