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General Information
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December 5, 2008
• Vol.30 Issue 49
Page(s) 5 in print issue
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Secure Remote Access
Positive Networks’ PhoneFactor Offers Safe Authentication & Fraud Protection
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Jump to first occurrence of: [WEISMAN]
 The American Foundation for the Blind recently commenced a pilot telecommuting program for about a third of its 120 employees. However, because the AFB has many blind employees, typical VPN authentication methods that rely on visual passwords just weren’t feasible, explains Kelly Bleach, the AFB’s chief IT officer.
Additionally, the organization found that simple password authentication wasn’t secure enough for its needs. “It’s easy for people to get passwords or find other people’s passwords,” says Bleach. “For anyone to access our network remotely, we wanted them to have a physical device [as well as] a password because a physical device makes it harder to get in unless you are really the authorized person.”
Fortunately, Bleach found PhoneFactor by Positive Networks (www.positivenetworks.com), which provides Bleach’s employees with two-factor authentication that her blind employees can also use. “It’s a matter of answering the phone and pressing the # key. It really solved everything,” Bleach says.
 A Happy Accident
The AFB (www.afb.org) had been using another authentication product for its network. However, the makers of that product changed it to work only with a single operating system. “As we started moving towards having a multitude of operating systems, [the company] required associated software [and a USB token] to be installed on the computer that was being used, and when people started using Vista computers, it wasn’t compatible anymore,” Bleach says.
According to Bleach, the AFB’s IT department discovered PhoneFactor by accident. “We were at Interop at [New York’s] Javits Center, just browsing the booths, when we saw PhoneFactor there,” says Bleach. PhoneFactor seemed to be the authentication solution the AFB needed, so Bleach decided to test out the basic network services provided with PhoneFactor’s free version. And it worked.
Bleach says PhoneFactor’s price was reasonable for the service it provided, and Positive Networks took the AFB’s nonprofit status into account when determining a price. The AFB has now gone from using only the free version of PhoneFactor to using Positive Networks’ entire VPN suite.
Easy Implementation Made Easier
Bleach says the AFB’s deployment of PhoneFactor went well. “My network engineer worked with someone on their staff, and they were willing to put in as much time as we needed to get it going [and] did phone training with him,” she says, adding that PhoneFactor offered excellent customer service even when the AFB was using the free version of the product.
The AFB’s network engineering department quickly figured out how to implement PhoneFactor in part because PhoneFactor uses an accessible Web-based administrative console. “One of our network administrators is blind and uses a screen reader, and she is able to set up accounts and make changes to accounts fine on her own using her screen reader,” says Bleach. “We were really pleased because a lot of times, we get administrative applications on the network that don’t work for a blind administrator, and [PhoneFactor] does,” she says.
The organization has been so pleased with the support PhoneFactor and Positive Networks as a whole has offered that the organization purchased a technical support plan so that if any of its users have a problem with PhoneFactor, they can call Positive Networks for help. “I’ve gotten good feedback. We had a meeting recently of our telecommuters, and the people who had used it were pleased with it,” says Bleach.
Making Telecommuting Easy
Using PhoneFactor is a snap for the AFB’s telecommuters. These employees enter the same username and password they use in the office, and PhoneFactor rings their phones to confirm the password authentication and allow them remote access into the office network.
In addition, PhoneFactor can be set so it will check telecommuters’ remote computers for antivirus and Windows updates, maintaining a secure network environment by preventing anyone who does not have the latest versions of Windows or antivirus programs on their home PCs or laptops from logging on until the updates have been installed.
“We’ve looked at a lot of different solutions for authenticating to a VPN for remote access, and I think PhoneFactor was pretty unique and creative. I’ve never seen anything like this [with] being able to use your existing cell phone, and so I just give them kudos for that creative thinking,” says Bleach.
Full Suite Ahead
After its success with PhoneFactor, the AFB migrated to Positive Networks’ VPN suite because it offers the same ease of use and inventive features that PhoneFactor does. As administrators, Bleach’s group can set up what files and services its remote users can access. “Their Positive Networks account will map their drives, can change what their desktop looks like, and can add folders to their Internet Favorites that would point to things within our network,” Bleach says.
One of Bleach’s favorite features is the ability to add Favorites and shortcuts to Internet Explorer, so if a conference call or something similar needs to be set up, employees can access the link through the favorites and shortcuts rather than having to remember a long URL. “Automatically, a link shows up in their IE Favorites, so all they have to do is click on that, and they are then rerouted to our conference server,” Bleach says. 
by Robyn Weisman
Positive Networks PhoneFactor
An easy-to-use VPN, corporate, or Web site login solution that uses a two-step authentication process. Once the user enters his or her name and password, PhoneFactor calls either the user’s cell or landline phone for a confirmation. PhoneFactor does not require special tokens for the user to carry or software to install.
“We’ve looked at a lot of different solutions for authenticating to a VPN for remote access, and I think PhoneFactor was pretty unique and creative. I’ve never seen anything like this [with] being able to use your existing cell or landline phone, and so I just give them kudos for that creative thinking,” says Kelly Bleach, chief IT officer at the American Foundation for the Blind (www.afb.org).
(877) 668-6536
www.positivenetworks.com
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More Than A Token
When Positive Networks set out to develop PhoneFactor, the company did not realize the practical implications for people with disabilities, says Sarah Fender, vice president of marketing and product management at Positive Networks (www.positivenetworks.com). “The phone is an inherently compatible device and something that people with disabilities can use,” she says.
But according to Fender, PhoneFactor was designed to eliminate the use of tokens for authentication purposes. “Just the fact that you have to carry around this device, and you lose them [or] they break [and] get out-of-sync, both from a user perspective and a corporate IT department perspective, [tokens are] a pain,” Fender says.
Although most commonly used as a two-factor authentication of corporate VPNs, PhoneFactor also aids organizations in securing Web sites, credit card transactions, and other online applications in which security is required. The company supplies Web plug-ins to help organizations effectively deploy it for use with their business partners and customers, as well as for its employees.
PhoneFactor also gives end users and IT departments the ability to get real-time fraud alerts. “Unlike a token or some other device, if someone knows your username and password and tries to log in, PhoneFactor will call you,” says Fender. “You can press ‘5#’ to generate a fraud alert that will lock your account and instantly notify your IT department, [which] can do research and figure out in real time the IP address that the attack is coming from.”
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