WidePoint’s ORC Provides Federal Grade Secured Cloud Services with Thales Hardware Security Modules

Cloud-based Identity-as-a-Service Backed by Hardened Cryptography Delivers Trusted Security and Broad Interoperability

Plantation, Fla – March 18, 2014 – Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, announces that Operational Research Consultants, Inc. (ORC), a subsidiary of WidePoint Corporation (NYSE Mkt: WYY) and pioneer in Federal identity management, has deployed Thales nShield hardware security modules (HSMs) to provide high levels of assurance for Federal cloud services and prove that the cloud really can be as safe, or even safer, than on-premise deployments – even for organizations as security-focused as the U.S. Federal Government.

The ORC PIVotal™ ID cloud-based federated identity solution uses Thales nShield HSMs to underpin the strong identity credentials that are trusted across the federal government as well as being federated globally. Thales HSMs are designed specifically to protect the critical root and issuing certificate authority keys that form the basis of trust in all modern PKIs, and are of critical importance in the overall assurance level of the system and when meeting stringent security requirements such as those demanded by NIST.

Daniel Turissini, CTO of WidePoint and Founder of ORC, Inc., a WidePoint company, said:
“In our line of work, creating trusted, compliant credentials is often a matter of national security. We needed a solution that delivers high assurance and absolute trust, enabling secure transactions for U.S. Federal Agencies (Civilian and Defense), their employees, the global contracting community, trading partners, Veterans and citizens who need to conduct business with any facet of the government. Thales HSMs offer the most cost-effective way to establish the appropriate levels of physical and logical controls where the security offered by software-based cryptography would be considered to be inadequate. The Thales nShield family of HSMs offers superior protection and cryptographic acceleration capabilities as well as the flexibility and scalability to protect and manage root keys and all subordinate keys within a secure cloud service infrastructure.”

Cindy Provin, president Thales e-Security Inc. said:
“We are pleased to have worked with ORC in providing federal grade secured cloud services for their customers. For many organizations thinking about moving sensitive data to the cloud, both government and enterprise, security issues remain a significant concern. By integrating the Thales nShield HSM to your Public Key Infrastructure, you are deploying a high assurance, independently certified, tamper-resistant device that is used to secure the most sensitive keys and business processes within governments and organizations around the world.”

Supporting resources:

Full case study: https://www.thales-esecurity.com/knowledge-base/case-studies/orc

WidePoint: http://www.widepoint.com