Posts Tagged ‘Councils’
March 19, 2014 | 
Author SecurEnvoy facilitates remote working for staff at city councils and municipal authorities
(PRWEB UK) 17 March 2014
From law enforcement officials to highway surveyors – staff at public authorities often work away from the office. As a result, they need to access city or municipal networks remotely in order to document their assignments. Employees at many such authorities log in via two-factor authentication and identify themselves using dedicated hardware tokens. However, with this approach, the procurement and maintenance costs relating to the tokens can rapidly escalate. An alternative is offered by the manufacturer SecurEnvoy, which has developed a tokenless two-factor authentication method. With this, staff working remotely can easily and efficiently log into networks using devices such as smartphones.
Traditional tokens, such as smart cards, are used in addition to login details in order to provide access authorisation in many companies and organisations. However, the implementation of such methods is often lengthy and replacing defective tokens can become expensive. SecurEnvoy enables companies and organisations to make use of smartphones, laptops or tablets as authentication devices. One of the methods from the SecurAccess solution is to send a dynamically generated password to the mobile devices of employees via SMS or e-mail. The password received is then combined with the user’s login information to enable tokenless two-factor authentication. Staff of public authorities can thus quickly and conveniently access IT networks. Examples such as the London Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea illustrate the advantages of tokenless two-factor authentication.
Reduced operating costs
The borough on the western side of the British capital employs thousands of civil servants to take care of the needs of approximately 150,000 inhabitants. In this context, more and more employees are accessing the administration’s main network remotely. For many years, non-office staff carried with them a dedicated, physical token, which generated access codes for network authentication purposes. However, this method proved to be time-consuming and insecure. Tokens were frequently lost or left behind with laptops and the constant need to replace them led to increased operating costs. The management found a better way with a tokenless approach and implemented a tokenless two-factor authentication procedure based on SecurAccess.
“The borough had already equipped more than 1,000 employees with mobile phones. We therefore wanted to make even greater use of this investment and save on the cost of dedicated tokens,” explains Russell Hookway, Network & Telecommunications Manager at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. “The good value for money offered was another reason why we really wanted to use the SecurEnvoy technology.”
Security concerns dispelled
The City Council of the Scottish city of Dundee, with a population of 140,000, also successfully uses tokenless two-factor authentication. The City Council’s aim was to address security concerns associated with location-independent network access by employees. In this regard, the City Council is subject to the requirements of the Scottish Government’s Code of Conduct and Compliance (CoCo) for local authorities.
“We wanted to improve the security of our virtual private networks and liked the easy and secure network access process offered by an SMS-based method,” explains Graeme Quinn, IT Team Leader of Dundee City Council. “Almost everyone has a mobile phone nowadays so overall costs can be managed. SecurAccess is a quick and easy solution to security issues related to remote access.”
More rapid processing of requests
In the Dutch province of Gelderland, tokenless two-factor authentication replaced the use of smart cards. Often the cards did not work, which resulted in many calls to the help desk from remote workers and also led to delays in carrying out requests. Card readers are also an issue when people work from home or from personal devices so combined with the issues of deploying certificates to the cards and the usability of the cards themselves, so organisations are finding it quicker, easier and more cost effective to use a tokenless alternative. The public authority contacted SecurEnvoy via a Dutch IT provider and opted for the SecurAccess solution. The positive effects soon became tangible: The processing time for individual remote requests was reduced from almost 50 minutes to about 30 seconds.
To find out more about the SecurEnvoy method, you can register at http://www.securenvoy.com/trial.aspx for a free live demonstration.
About SecurEnvoy plc:
SecurEnvoy is the creator of patented tokenless solutions for two-factor authentication. Millions of users globally already benefit from the fastest mobile authentication process that doesn’t require a token. It uses common devices like mobile and smartphones, tablets and laptops to provide the passcode for authentication. Even without a mobile or internet connection the user can retrieve the code via voice call or identification with the One Swipe technology that relies on a QR code scan. The product range of the company based in London (UK), Frankfurt (D), New York and San Diego (USA) includes the SecurAccess solution. The administration tools can be easily integrated into existing IT infrastructures and allow administrators to add up to 100,000 users per hour. SC Magazine awarded the solution ‘Best Buy’, this compliments being awarded leading visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. SecurEnvoy has a customer base in all verticals including banking, finance, insurance, government, manufacturing, marketing, retail, telecoms, charity, law and construction. The authentication expert collaborates with partners such as AEP, Astaro, Cisco, Checkpoint, Citrix, Juniper, F5, Palo Alto, Sophos, etc. See http://www.SecurEnvoy.com for further information.
Further information:
SecurEnvoy Ltd.
Steve Watts
Sales Director
E-mail: swatts(at)securenvoy(dot)com
Internet: http://www.securenvoy.com
Global HQ:
SecurEnvoy Global HQ
Merlin House
Brunel Road
Theale
Reading
RG7 4AB
USA branch I:
SecurEnvoy
373 Park Ave South
New York,
NY 10016
USA branch II:
SecurEnvoy
Mission Valley Business Center
8880 Rio San Diego Drive
8th Floor San Diego CA 92108
PR agency:
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Germany
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Posted in Personal Finance | 
Tags: authorities, City, Councils, facilitates, municipal, remote, SecurEnvoy, staff, Working | 
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CIGI Founding Member of Council of Councils, Linking World’s Major Foreign Policy Institutes
Waterloo, Ont. (PRWEB) March 14, 2012
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is proud to announce its membership in the inaugural Council of Councils.
Launched these days in Washington, D.C., by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) , the Council of Councils is an international initiative to connect major foreign policy institutes from about the world in a widespread conversation on issues of global governance and multilateral cooperation. The mission of the Council of Councils is to locate typical ground on shared threats, build help for innovative concepts, and inject remedies into the public debate and policymaking processes of member countries.
The founding membership of the Council of Councils consists of top institutions from nineteen countries, roughly tracking the composition of the Group of Twenty (G20). The network will facilitate candid, not-for-attribution dialogue and consensus creating among influential opinion leaders from established and emerging nations. CIGI is the Council of Councils’ sole Canadian member organization.
CFR will convene the inaugural Council of Councils conference on March 1213 in Washington, D.C. Participants will tackle four main themes at this first gathering:
the general state of international governance and multilateral cooperation
the status of the nuclear nonproliferation regime (with a concentrate on Iran)
the U.S. dollar’s future as the world’s reserve currency
the criteria for humanitarian intervention, in the wake of regime alter in Libya and the ongoing crisis in Syria
Transcripts from two on-the-record sessions of the conference, featuring President of the World Bank Robert B. Zoellick and Undersecretary of State Robert D. Hormats, will be offered on CFR.org following the occasion.
In addition to an annual conference, the Council of Councils will give an ongoing exchange for research and policy collaboration amongst its members. CFR and its international partners will experiment with new technology, making use of state-of-the-art videoconferencing, wikis, and mobile platforms to collectively communicate and respond to breaking crises. The group will also take into account lengthy-term structural reforms that would enhance the international governance capacity of major international institutions.
To see the complete list of founding Council of Councils member organizations, visit http://www.cfr.org/projects/world/council-of-councils/pr1592?cid=nlc-news_release-news_release-link4-20120312
“Innovative governance approaches to global challenges underlie CIGI’s mission,” said CIGI Executive Director Thomas A. Bernes. “The new Council of Councils is a further step in working with our global partners to search out the very best policy assistance and amplify its delivery to policy makers.”
CFR President Richard N. Haass stated, “The defining foreign policy challenges of the twenty-very first century are global in nature. The Council of Councils draws on the best thinking from around the world to assess emerging threats and opportunities and formulate responses to them.”
The Council of Councils initiative is funded by a generous grant from the Robina Foundation, as element of its ongoing assistance for CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance plan.
CIGI MEDIA Make contact with:
Declan Kelly, Communications Specialist, CIGI
Tel: 519.885.2444, ext. 356, E-mail: dkelly(at)cigionline(dot)org
CFR MEDIA Make contact with:
Anya Schmemann, Director of Communications, CFR
Tel: 202.509.8419, E mail: aschmemann(at)cfr(dot)org
ABOUT CIGI and CFR:
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports investigation, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates concepts for multilateral governance improvements. Conducting an active agenda of investigation, events and publications, CIGI’s interdisciplinary function includes collaboration with policy, business and academic communities about the world. CIGI was founded in 2001 by Jim Balsillie, then co-CEO of Study In Motion (RIM), and collaborates with and gratefully acknowledges assistance from a quantity of strategic partners, in certain the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario. For far more details, please pay a visit to http://www.cigionline.org.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, feel tank, and publisher dedicated to getting a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to aid them much better comprehend the globe and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other nations. CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
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, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
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Posted in Foreign Exchange | Tags: CIGI, Council, Councils, Foreign, Founding, Institutes, Leading, Linking, Member, Policy, World's | 3 Comments »