Agfa uses Yubico technology for secure, simple and affordable remote access
June 2009
Agfa, a leading provider of imaging systems and IT solutions, is now securing access to their corporate network environment with YubiKey. The YubiKey is a new and open source authentication USB key developed by fast growing and award winning innovator Yubico. By choosing Yubico technology, Agfa is able to simplify secure login and bring down the total cost by 30% of previously used hardware security.
Agfa is using the YubiKey for authenticating their employees to grant them access to internal resources when they are located outside the corporate network. The users include field technicians, home workers and support people from within the 3 divisions of Agfa: Healthcare, Graphics and Materials.
These users authenticate via radius to connect to applications including Cisco VPN client, SAP web portal and Checkpoint Firewall. Agfa is using the YubiKey as a replacement of their aging RSA and Vasco tokens. Using this setup, Agfa can gradually phase out from the old setup into the new while saving money.
Agfa ICS (Information & Communication Services) chose the YubiKey because it gives a low cost, flexible solution that could easily be integrated in the existing setup.
“Apart from lower token hardware cost, Agfa also expects the support cost to be greatly reduced since 35% of the problems with remote access are related to forgotten passwords/PIN codes. With a simpler method for the support staff to reset the end-user’s password, we hope to accomplish this. The open source concept also made it feasible to do this,” says Erik Ruwalder from the ICS organization.
The YubiKey was recently awarded as “Best innovation” in European identity Awards “for making strong authentication easy to use and deploy.”
About Agfa
The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world’s leading imaging and information technology companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems for the printing industry (Agfa Graphics), the healthcare sector (Agfa HealthCare) and specific industrial applications (Agfa Materials). Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is present in 40 countries and has agents in another 100 countries throughout the world. The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 3,283 million Euro in 2007. www.agfa.com
About Yubico
Yubico's core product is the YubiKey®, a unique USB-key for instant and strong authentication to networks and services.