On February 19, Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (hereafter Toppan Printing; head office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President & CEO: Naoki Adachi) will launch sales of "TopCert", an IC card authentication and management solution for employee ID cards that is compatible with Microsoft Windows. By using TopCert as the operating base required when introducing "Smart Card Logon" for logging on to PCs using IC employee ID cards, companies that have constructed an internal system using Windows Server OS can construct a security base that is extremely cost effective. As an operating base for "Microsoft Certificate Services", this solution enables management of the lifecycles of IC cards and electronic certificates that are issued.

Background
Security measures at companies are being continually enhanced. Such measures include the introduction of IC cards for employee ID cards as a means of preventing leaks of personal information and enabling safe access to networks. However, increasing IT costs for security enhancement have become an issue.
One method of enhancing security is to implement management by issuing each employee with an ID card that contains an electronic certificate. There are generally 2 types of electronic certificate, public certificates and private certificates, and their use depends upon the situation. The license fees for public certificates are generally high but because they are incorporated up-front into general web browsers and the like, they are suitable for SSL with unspecified numbers on the internet. On the other hand, private certificates are suitable for use on limited networks such as access control for in-company servers, because they can be issued relatively cheaply and flexibly subject to the unique operating rules of the issuer. Microsoft Certificate Services have the advantage of offering the issuance of private certificates at no charge but in terms of operation, the workload involved has become an issue because an electronic certificate has to be issued for each user.
TopCert is an IC card authentication and management solution that has been designed using Toppan Printing’s know-how in IC card issuance and operation. It provides support for the operation of IC cards using Microsoft Certificate Services, from the start of introduction at a company up to full scale operation, and significantly reduces the operational workload of administrators.

Features of TopCert
1, Management of the lifecycles of IC employee ID cards
This system provides the necessary operational functions for the management of IC cards and electronic certificates via a web-based interface. These operations include application, screening, issuance and auditing for employee ID cards. This enables efficient operational management of IC employee ID cards and electronic certificates, and management of the lifecycle of IC cards from an employee’s entry into a company through transfer and leaving the company.

2, Bulk issuance of electronic certificates when IC card introduction is commenced
With the traditional Microsoft Certificate Services the large operational workload for administrators has been an issue because it is necessary to issue an electronic certificate for every ActiveDirectory*1 user.
Introducing TopCert significantly reduces this workload because it is possible to issue electronic certificates in bulk for all users even if there are large numbers of users managed with ActiveDirectory.

3, Tie-up with IC card issuance services
With its "IC Card Issuance Service", Toppan Printing will support the introduction of IC cards using electronic certificates issued with TopCert. By using IC card printers sold by Toppan Printing, it is also possible for companies to issue individual IC employee ID cards with electronic certificates in-house.

4, Windows standard "Smart Card Logon" IC card authentication can be used
This solution is also compatible with the "SMARTICS-PKI" IC card that Toppan Printing has sold since September 2009. Smart Card Logon can be made possible by writing electronic certificates onto IC employee ID cards.
It is also possible to use PKI applications that use electronic certificates such as SSL-VPN access authentication*2 and SSL client authentication*3.

Overview of a system at a company using TopCert

Copyright 2010 TOPPAN PRINTING CO., LTD.

Price
Software license fee: 4 million yen (Separate fees are required for introduction)

Sales target
For TopCert, SMARTICS-PKI cards and related solutions, Toppan Printing is targeting sales of 150 million yen over 2 years from fiscal 2010 with adoption by 5 companies.

*1 Active Directory A service for large-scale networks that manage multiple domains. Enables central management of client users on the network and resources such as computer information. *2 SSL-VPN access authentication A mechanism that requires electronic certificates to be presented in order to authenticate the connection source when servers are accessed remotely using SSL. *3 SSL client authentication A mechanism that requires electronic certificates to be presented on the client side in order to authenticate the connection source for connections to servers using SSL. * The company names and product names in this press release are the registered trademarks or trademarks of the respective companies.