Webinar on Supporting Smart Cards on the Apple Mac OS X Platform

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Quick heads up that Centrify is hosting a webinar on May 7th on the topic of "Simplifying Mac Smart Card Support in Windows Environments." Click here to register. Besides discussing how Centrify DirectControl can better integrate smartcards with Apple Macs, it will also cover how Federal agencies can meet HSPD-12 security requirements by leveraging Active Directory to support CAC, PIV, and .NET smart cards on Macs.

Besides having a great product that addresses this requirement, Centrify has a wealth of material on the topic of strong authentication and smartcard support for the Mac. Here are some of the resources we offer:

• Blog post on "Strong Authentication for the Mac"
• Video chalktalks on "Smart card support for Mac": part 1 and part 2.

As a reminder, smart cards are really the most secure form of user authentication since it requires the user to both (a) have their smartcard with them (which is usually also configured to act as their photo ID badge ensuring that they keep it with them at all times) as well as (b) to know the unlocking PIN. This provides an ATM style experience for access to the computer being protected. Providing users with a strong authentication solution such as this is increasingly important once all systems within an enterprise are integrated into a common Directory for user authentication and access management. In fact in all of the US Department of Defense (DOD) agencies as well as Federal agencies, a Common Access Card (aka CAC card) or Personal Identification and Verification card (aka PIV card) is required to be used for photo ID, building access and logical access purposes.

With DirectControl 4.2 for OS X, Centrify provides one of the missing components for these high security organizations to embrace or adopt Mac workstations, namely Smartcard Login to Active Directory. Technically you may hear this called pkinit which is the function of authenticating to Active Directory with a PKI Certificate. With DirectControl for OS X and its smart card support, Centrify definitely delivers a "must have" for Federal customers looking secure integration of their Department of Defense (DOD) Common Access Cards (CAC) with their Apple Macintosh computers running OS X 10.5 and above. Call it "CAC with Mac" :-)

The webinar will cover this and more, again please click here to register.

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