The Zitouna Bank in Tunisia has selected Gemalto’s Dexxix Instant Issuance solution for personalization options to its customers, making it the first bank in the country to offer technology with its payment cards.

Gemalto, in cooperation with local system integrator Bull Tunisia, has installed the personalization stations, software and equipment, in ten Zitouna branches around the country and has made the service immediately available to all of the bank’s customers. Those who sign up with accounts will leave the bank with a personalized EMV payment card in-hand. The bank sees the new technology as a incentive to secure customers subscription into payment card options and hopefully provide those unbanked with immediate solutions and services.  

After six months of internal testing, Cloudkick Web application has chosen Yubico’s USB-key multi-factor authentication product as an option for customer login. The YubiKey aims to add another layer of security for customers managing their cloud servers.

This service will be implemented into the Cloudkick Web site and therefore not require any software in addition to the YubiKey device. 

Hitachi ID Systems introduces the Password Manager 7.0, an authentication management system said to manage any and all authentication factor used by corporation users. Hitachi claims that the Password Manager 7.0 promises better security, scalability and improved ROI to users with SQL Server or Oracle back-end, a real-time data replication service, high performance data updates and Unicode support.

The most significant features added to this service include authentication chains, supporting context-sensitive and multi-step processes for validating user identity, such as the use of mobile phones for authentication. 

The newest clients to the PhoneFactor Inc. roster have been confirmed as the U.S. Department of State, the District of Columbia government, and the Federal Railroad Administration, and hereby increasing the level of secure authentication access to our nation’s sensitive data.

PhoneFactor, which services a number of other government agencies providing a critical second level of authentication for remote workers conveniently for end users and IT departments. 

DigitalPersona has announced the release of new biometric solution for digital access management, data protection and communication security.

The solution, called DigitalPersona Pro Enterprise, is capable of full disk encryption, two-factor virtual private network authentication utilizing biometrics and smart cards, fingerprint biometrics, is integrated with Microsoft Active Directory and can all be managed from a central system. 

Microsoft has partnered with InCommon Affiliate for a program that’s responsible for providing the education community with a way to connect with affiliate partners who are able to help build the necessary underlying online infrastructure on campus that supports federated access.

Through InCommon, the U.S. trust federation in higher education operated by Internet2, higher education institutions and their partners offer access to contract and collaborative services - in a privacy- and security-enhanced method - to faculty, researchers, students and staff. 

In case of a massive cyber attack individuals around the world could be called upon to restart the Internet, according to BBC and Popular Science reports.

Seven individuals spanning the globe have been issuing a smart card that would be used to restart the Web. Five of the seven key holders – one each from Britain, the U.S., Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, China, and the Czech Republic – would have to meet at a U.S. base with their keys to restart the system and connect everything once again.