* Introducing Anakam
While I was researching a list of identity product/service vendors for an upcoming Network World project, I came across one I hadn’t heard of before. That’s not unusual as there are plenty of start-ups in the identity space and lots of them are in stealth mode. Still, I do usually hear about them. Certainly any company which professes to offer an “identity suite” is one I should have heard of.
But Anakam was completely unknown to me. Still, I was intrigued by its slogan: “enabling the masses.”
It turns out that the company specializes in a couple of different areas, perhaps only in the intersection of those areas: healthcare and government. It offers its services to banking and commerce, but it appears its customer base is overwhelmingly healthcare oriented.
Often new companies will be started by people who have worked (or schooled) together. Anakam is no different, but the circumstances might be: the CEO Allan Camaisa, COO Scott Leftwich, and CTO Brent Williams are all graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and all served in non-IT areas – Camaisa on destroyers, Leftwich in planes and Williams in submarines. An interesting background for identity services, isn’t it?
One thing that a background on ships will do is to give you a sense of the “remote user” – far from base – as well as the need for scale. Both are prominent in the company’s products. In fact, Anakam’s claim is that “…for only a fraction of the price of competing token based systems, the Anakam Identity Suite provides customers with identity management tools that scale for millions of remote users.”
The suite consists of five modules:
* Two-factor authentication – (Anakam.TFA) delivers two-factor authentication through the use of devices users already have, such as cell phones, pagers, home phones, Web connected computers and office phones.
* ID proofing – (Anakam.IDP) cost effective, “no-touch” identity proofing of online users, perfect for use on applications where face-to-face identity verification is not practical, and the cost of tokens, fobs and cards is prohibitive.
* Credentialing gateway – (Anakam.CGW) complements the identity proofing process by automatically binding the professional credentials of a registrant to the identity established in the identity proofing process.
Data protection system – (Anakam.DPS) provides digital rights management (DRM) and differential encryption at the sub-document level, including masking and redaction.
* System administration –(Anakam Administration Console) provides the flexibility to customize the challenge and authentication process to either increase or decrease the level of security access depending on the level of risk.
Note that last one: risk-based authentication or “context-based” authentication as I like to call it. It just might be worth taking the time to have a look.
Note: for those too young to remember, Navy Commodore Grace Hopper is credited with creating the programming language, COBOL, among other noted accomplishments.
