BiObex advances core security goals of an organization and augments existing policies, applications and systems by enabling the deployment of integrated or "fused" multiple biometric systems as part of an enterprise security solution. The middleware addresses a critical gap by providing a means to integrate disparate technologies to enable enterprise-wide deployment of multimodal biometric systems for physical and logical access control, authenticated identity management - including biometric enabled single sign-on to business portals, enterprise and web-based applications, as well as authenticated identity in a mobile environment.

Originally designed for use by the Federal government to address rigorous security and interoperability requirements, BiObex is a cross-platform, JAVA-based middleware capable of integrating any combination of platform, database, biometric sensor and operating system, including Windows, Linux, UNIX, Trusted Solaris and NSE-Linux.

Enterprise Wide Deployment
The core functionality of BiObex allows an enterprise to define policy-based methods for implementing various types of biometric access control systems, using a consistent application for management, enrollment, administration, auditing, event logging and reporting. For example, an enterprise may be required to implement smart cards for HSPD-12 compliance, fingerprint to authenticate to a PC or network and iris scan or facial recognition to secure entrance to a facility. An implementation of various products from various vendors most often leads to "disparate technologies" with different software supporting each. This can be a nightmare to implement and maintain - not to mention costly and time consuming. Using BiObex as the middleware, the organization is able to select the "best of breed" biometric sensors from various vendors with the capability to integrate with other systems using custom extensions and standard APIs. The unparalleled multi-platform support, database support and integration methods - combined with a flexible plug-in architecture - make it the most flexible and dynamic authentication management solution available today for enterprise wide deployment of diverse biometric systems.

Policy-based Administration
Policies define requirements for authentication and actions to be taken if suspicious or failed logins are detected. Security policies are assigned to users, groups, or a combination of the two. Actions can include sending an alert, locking out the user, terminal or scanner that the user was attempting to access, and communicating with existing security systems through an API. Different organizations will have unique security needs and varying security policies. Organizations may have policies about how to divide up the tasks of managing biometric data. Similarly the number of biometrics and matching threshold required to authenticate a user is a policy decision. BiObex offers a unique policy based administration model that allows the customization of security on a user or group basis.

Security
BiObex offers strong encryption for all authentication and enrollment related network traffic, support for encrypted databases and digital certificate based scanner authentication to ensure maximum levels of security.

Consistency and Ease of Use
BiObex offers consistent, advanced visual setup and management tools regardless of the biometric methods required. This ensures easier training, enrollment, administration and maintenance tasks throughout the use of the product. For end-users, biometric authentication appears as the primary login (and can be integrated with single sign-on products), or prompts the user for biometric identification at the appropriate application level. An additional feature is internationalization support for overseas implementations.