Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Dallas-based Entrust to provide secure E-mail to Saudi Arabian government

By Pegasus News wire

DALLAS — Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) standardized on two security solutions from Entrust, Inc. in conjunction with Entrust local partner Moammar Information Systems. MCIT will leverage Entrust Authority PKI and Entrust Entelligence Messaging Server for encryption, digital signatures and authentication capabilities to underpin its national ID project, as well as secure e-mail.

Photo not provided by Entrust, Saudi Arabia

The country's national ID program likely means privacy will become a thing of the past

"I am a firm believer in PKI as the best and most secure means of strong authentication, which is essential to ensure the security of e-government and other electronic systems holding important and confidential data," said Dr. Fahad A. Al Hoymany, the Minister's Advisor for IT and Director of E-Government Infrastructure for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. "I am also delighted to be working with Entrust, a foremost supplier of this type of technology, in building the infrastructure at the heart of Saudi Arabia's continuing move into the information age."

In the near term, the national ID will serve as a base certificate, which will be used for all e-government initiatives and other official purposes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for both citizens and businesses. The Saudi Arabian e-government budget also calls for the development of several major infrastructure projects, including a G2G portal and data center.

Entrust Authority Security Manager, a world-leading PKI, is designed to manage the digital keys and certificates that make up the digital identities used to transparently automate security-related processes in an organization.

Source: Entrust, Inc.

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