COMDEX - EDS offers new airline, business security tools

November 12, 2001 —

LAS VEGAS - EDS Corp. unveiled a slate of new security and privacy products that incorporate biometrics and smart cards and are aimed at the enterprise, airports and airlines at the Comdex trade show here Monday.

Developments in these areas are crucial because "security and privacy are no longer an option, but a necessity," said Al Decker, director of Global Security and Privacy services at EDS. "Trust has to underlie all the innovations, all the technologies put forward today," he added.

To that end, the company announced its full suite of airline and airport security products, which offer passenger risk scoring and authentication, aircraft boarding control and employee access authentication, among other capabilities. EDS also showed a combination hand-print scanner and smart card authentication device that is used for passenger authentication and check-in at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. That device, as well as some of the announced components, are already in use at a handful of airports worldwide, according to Jim Dullum, president of the Global Transportation Industry Group at EDS.

The airline/airport security suite offers passenger risk scoring and authentication components which require that passengers submit information to a database and are then issued a smart card to be used with a biometric authentication device, Dullum said. Having such a system increases the number of "known" passengers, thereby freeing up airport security employees' time and effort to focus on the "unknown" passengers, those that are not included in the database, he said. This system is already being used to authenticate over 70 million passengers a year, he said.

Physical airport security is covered under the suite through a biometrics/smart card combination aimed at authenticating airport employees as they move between key airport facilities, Dullum said. The security of restricted areas and airport vehicles is addressed through a monitoring system that employs both video cameras and radio frequency surveillance, he said.

The suite also includes an aircraft boarding control component which enables baggage loaded on to a plane to be matched with a passenger on the plane and quickly identified for removal if no passenger can be found, Dullum said.

For enterprise security, EDS announced the immediate availability of a trio of new consulting tools aimed at identifying security and privacy vulnerabilities, as well as assessing security risks for underwriters. The first offering, the Security Assessment Tool, checks systems against sets of best security practices from the International Standards Organization, the National Security Agency and Carnegie-Melon University, said Al Decker.

For companies looking to comply with privacy regulations like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), COPPA (the Child Online Privacy Protection Act) and the Graham-Leach-Bliley finance legislation, EDS unveiled its Privacy Assessment Tool. This tool audits your privacy polices against the requirements of these regulations. Lastly, the company also took the wraps off a Cyber Risk Management Assessment Tool designed to help underwriters assess cyber risks and security, Decker said.

The tools are not available for sale, but rather will be offered as part of EDS's consulting service, and will cost between US$5,000 and $20,000, depending on the situation, Decker said. Once an initial round of testing is done using the tools, other consulting plans and costs could result, he added.

EDS also made a handful of smaller announcements concerning smart card deployment, biometrics and security training for executives. The company said Monday that it had begun delivery of thousands of smart cards to the U.S. Department of Defense, which the DoD will distribute to its active duty, reserve personnel and National Guard troops at 900 worldwide sites. EDS said that later in the week it will offer more details about biometrics firm Identix Inc., becoming its preferred provider for biometric authentication. Lastly, the company also announced a new course at its Cyber Security Institute aimed at high-level corporate executives designed to increase their security knowledge.

EDS, in Plano, Texas, can be reached at +1-972-604-6000 or online at http://www.eds.com/.

ITworld.com