Overview

The TELEGRID SMRTe platform employs a patent-pending technology that is used to level the network’s authentication playing field by allowing any network resource, i.e., device or application, regardless of whether it utilizes single factor authentication or any one of the popular hard-coded Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) methods to utilize a central MFA solution selected by the administrator.

The impetus for the development of the SMRTe was the realization that whereas modern network resources have been undergoing accelerated convergence due to the adoption of standard protocols, open source software and the integration of centralized software services, access management, specifically authentication, has not seen any positive progress towards increased security, simplicity or commonality. Many resources still rely on proven unsecure single factor authentication – username and password – and the variety of proprietary multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions just seems to be getting larger. As a result, network architects are fearful that any access management solution they choose will only complicate their environment, ruin user experience or lock them into one solution for life.

Simply adding a SMRTe platform, available as a hardware appliance or a Virtual Machine (VM), to a network facilitates MFA access to any and all existing network resources. This is done simply without changes to resources, adding firewalls, changing network architecture or introducing latency. The straightforward central nature of the SMRTe also allows for easy implementation of future new commercial MFA solutions. Future solutions need only be added as a software modification to the SMRTe rather than to each network resource.

TELEGRID has been designing, prototyping, producing and maintaining network infrastructure security products for US Government and military organizations for more than 33 years. The SMRTe is under evaluation by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the US Army.