User's Manual

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WebIdentity represents the ideal hardware & software solution:
• for Strong Authentication of web-based service users
• for managing protected transactions over the Internet network
2.4 Fields of application
The typical WebIdentity user is anybody interested in the protection of web services, that is in protecting access to
reserved information and services that are available via a web server. For instance:
• customized price-lists
• download areas for software update
• on-line newspapers and magazines
• management of Internet subscriptions
The univocal and selective authentication of users enables, among other things, to manage customized user profiles and
a really controlled and selective distribution of received information.
2.5 USB Tokens
The WebIdentity product features some functional characteristics that make it the ideal solution for secure
authentication when accessing restricted resources.
WebIdentity can identify with absolute certainty the person who is accessing an Internet website thanks to the use of a
microchip. Besides, thanks to the univocal data entered in the production phase each WebIdentity token has been
produced in a univocal and unrepeatable way.
Thanks to the USB HID interface, WebIdentity affords the advantage of being interfaceable with any available PC
without adding any hardware infrastructure. It also offers a reduced dimension that makes it extremely easy to transport,
like with a smart card.
2.6 Authentication
WebIdentity originated with the intention of making an Internet service user identifiable univocally and guaranteeing
access to information contained in the website only and exclusively to the identified and authorized user.
The WebIdentity, ActiveX and Plug-In software components exploit the storage and cryptography potential of the
WebIdentity hardware key, enabling access to a Web site only and exclusively to a user in possession of a WebIdentity
and duly initialized by the Internet service provider.
The control on the user’s identity is carried out via a process requiring the initialization of a token and the
implementation of a challenge/response protocol for authentication:
1. Initialization of the WebIdentity device to be supplied to the service user to protect and generation of a database or
addition to the existing one of the token identifying information (User-Id) for each associated user.
2. forwarding of server-generated challenge to the client.
3. Verification of initialized WebIdentity’s presence on the client; reading and computation of response; forwarding
of response to the server for recognition.
4. Verification of response on the server, identification of the user, forwarding of information to the client if the user
turns out to be authenticated.
2.7 Cryptography
Besides identifying the user, Eutron WebIdentity’s technology puts another important possibility at the ISPs’ disposal:
forwarding of encrypted data over the Internet. Indeed it is rather simple, once the client is identified, to be able to
forward the hyper-textual content of the pages and receive the data entered in a form on the client by the user securely,
that is to say, encrypted. The operation is always carried out by the ActiveX that come with the WebIdentity solution.