M-Tech Announces New Regulatory Compliance Product for Effective Identity Management

ID-Certify Addresses Organizations Challenge of Identifying and Removing Improper Access Rights to Satisfy Regulatory Requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley and More

Calgary, AB - October 19, 2004 - M-Tech Information Technology, Inc., a leading provider of identity management solutions, today announced the release of ID-Certify, a unique, patent-pending regulatory compliance solution that extends the functionality of the Hitachi ID Management Suite. ID-Certify provides assurance to CEOs and CFOs that their organizations are fully compliant with strong information access controls and customer data privacy protection.

Taking an innovative approach to determining users access rights, ID-Certify draws from corporate organizational chart data to identify all users and their managers.

Rather than attempting to classify users in complex and extremely time consuming role engineering projects, ID-Certify employs a more practical approach based on the premise that managers know what system access rights each of their employees require. Using this basic approach, ID-Certify delegates access reviews of all employees to their respective managers. As reviews are completed ID-Certify rolls up access audit results, from low-level managers all the way to top-level executives.

The key benefits of ID-Certify include:

Assurance for CEOs and CFOs that their organization is in compliance with internal access policies and external regulations.
Ensures that user and account data is up-to-date.
Increased network security by identifying and removing all dormant and orphan accounts, as well as any unwarranted access privileges.
A realistic, deployable solution based on a simple, practical approach that eliminates the need for costly user role engineering.

The innovative, patent-pending ID-Certify process is administered through a digital dashboard interface that lets each manager monitor the certification status of each subordinate. Managers view a list of their staff, along with all login accounts and group memberships for each user. They then review each security entitlement, and either certify that it is appropriate or ask that it be deleted. Upon completing the review, managers are required to provide an electronic signature, to certify that all remaining entitlements for their staff are appropriate. ID-Certify automatically routes proposed access changes to the appropriate authorizers. Approved changes are automatically implemented.

The ID-Certify dashboard employs a user friendly red, yellow and green "traffic light" system to indicate whether each manager has completed certification. When the ID-Certify process is finished, the CEO or CFO receives a report confirming that all security entitlements have been reviewed, anomalies have been identified and removed, and remaining user rights are appropriate. This puts the organization in compliance with regulatory requirements for executive attention regarding corporate governance and privacy protection.

"In today's world of regulatory requirements, organizations are looking for workable solutions that can verify access to information that satisfies compliance audit requirements," said Trent Henry, security strategies analyst at Burton Group. "What M-Tech has done with the upcoming release of ID-Certify is bring compliance controls to the forefront of their user provisioning product. The company understands that in order for organizations to meet both internal and external regulatory requirements, the ability to quickly and effectively solve account access issues is paramount."

"Compliance management has become the number one business driver for organizations considering an identity management solution," said Idan Shoham, Chief Technology Officer at M-Tech. "ID-Certify is crucial to completing a compliance architecture within an information and data network, suitable for audit and regulatory requirements. This new solution provides organizations the ability to monitor, manage and prove that they are in full regulatory compliance, without resorting to huge role engineering projects."

Pricing and Availability

ID-Certify will ship as a part of the M-Tech Identity Management Suite and will be available on November 1st, 2004.

About M-Tech Information Technology, Inc.

M-Tech is a leading provider of identity management solutions for the enterprise. The M-Tech Identity Management Suite combines ID-Synch for user provisioning, P-Synch for password management, ID-Access for self-service resource access, Hitachi ID Automated Discovery for account clean-up and reconciliation, ID-Certify to provide regulatory assurance. Combined, these products offer a comprehensive identity management solution for mid-sized organizations to global enterprises. M-Tech is the only identity management software vendor to consistently prove an ROI in three to six months.

M-Tech's customers include Avon, Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cisco, eBay, Ford Motor Company, Intel, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Merck MetLife, NCR Corporation, Pfizer, Pitney Bowes, Sears, Shell, Symantec, Wells Fargo and many more.. For more information on M-Tech and its products, please visit Hitachi-ID.com or call 1.403.233.0740.

M-Tech Contact

Dawn Mallyon
VP Marketing
Hitachi ID Systems, Inc.
500, 1401 1st Street S.E
Calgary, AB T2G 2J3
1.403.233.0740 ext. 324
dawn_mallyon@Hitachi-ID.com

©2004 Hitachi ID Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Hitachi ID Password Manager (formerly P-Synch) and Hitachi ID Identity Manager are trademarks of Hitachi ID Systems, Inc. in the United States, Canada, and all other countries. All other marks, symbols and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.