Entrust Supports E-Sign Act as Key Step in Securing E-Business
Transactions Across Industries
PLANO, Texas, Oct 2, 2000 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Entrust Technologies Inc.
(NASDAQ:ENTU), a global leader in solutions that bring trust to e-business,
today announced its support for the Electronic Signatures in Global and National
Commerce Act (e-Sign Act), which went into effect as law on October 1, 2000.
Entrust expects the law to enable the rapid adoption of digital signatures by
providing a legal foundation within the U.S. for the technology's
implementation.
Entrust believes that digital signatures using PKI (public-key infrastructure)
software represent the most effective and feasible solution for authenticating
(or identifying) users and binding them to online transactions. As the global
leader in providing PKI software solutions, Entrust has customers in a wide
variety of vertical markets that are actively using digital signatures today to
securely streamline their e-business processes. Entrust's base of customers in
over 40 countries is a testament to the ongoing adoption of digital signatures
across a broad spectrum of vertical industries, including financial services,
insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and the public
sector. Some industries, such as healthcare through the Health Insurance and
Portability Act (HIPAA), have already recommended security standards to develop
and maintain the security of all electronic information exchanged.
Entrust/PKI-based digital signatures fulfill the stringent requirements for
secure electronic authentication within these standards.
"The e-Sign Act of 2000 gives people a foundation to modernize their businesses
and validates the increasing importance of trusted e-business infrastructures to
the national economy," said John Ryan, president and CEO of Entrust. "Entrust
plans to continue contributing to the development of standards and practices
promoting a more secure environment to conduct e-business transactions through a
variety of technologies, being the first to market with a commercial PKI-based
digital signature product in 1994."
Applications and Benefits of Digital Signatures
Digital signatures are currently integrated in hundreds of e-business solutions
offered by Entrust and its partners, including electronic forms, document
management, email, and various Web applications. The underlying technology of
digital signatures provides the foundation to enable these types of business
benefits:
- Consumers can purchase products and services online more
conveniently and with confidence.
- Governments and businesses can streamline operations and reduce
costs.
- E-businesses can strengthen and streamline online relationships
with suppliers, customers and partners.
- E-businesses can be deployed more quickly, bringing information to
market faster and enhancing competitiveness and innovation.
Specific examples of Entrust customers currently using Entrust digital signature
technology for secure transactions and communications are available at the
following Web link: entrust.com .
Digital Signatures as Compared to Electronic Signatures
Entrust maintains that digital signatures, which provide proof of identity and
integrity of the transaction, are superior to all other forms of electronic
signatures, which can include merely signing an electronic tablet at the point
of sale or capturing and appending a graphical signature to a file. Whereas
digital signatures cannot be forged or copied, other forms of electronic
signatures can be easily copied and do not ensure validity of the information
contained within the transaction.
Digital signatures can be used to solve one of the most important challenges of
the Internet - identifying the parties before, during, and after the completion
of a transaction. They are cryptographically generated based on PKI technology,
providing proof that a specific person authorized a specific transaction and
that the data contained within that transaction has not been altered since it
was sent. The ability to generate a digital signature can be complemented by
additional means of authentication such as smart cards or biometric devices
including fingerprint scanners, retinal scanners or voice recognition
technology.
For additional information on electronic signatures and legislation, please
visit entrust.com.
About Entrust/PKI
A public-key infrastructure (PKI) provides a highly trusted infrastructure for
issuing and managing digital certificates. Entrust/PKI(TM) certificates enable
transactions to be conducted securely. Acting like a digital 'passport' that
strongly binds transacting parties to a transaction before, during and after it
occurs, Entrust digital certificates are a mechanism for organizations to easily
secure transactions in a scalable and cost-effective manner while establishing
and maintaining their brand and affinity with their constituents.
Entrust/TruePass and Entrust/Express products provide digital signatures to
authenticate all participants within a transaction, in conjunction with the
proven backbone of Entrust/PKI. |
