Ares brings non-stop information security to Taipei City Government Department of Information Technology

Successful transformation to advocate smart living technologies

Taiwan's Taipei City Government established the Taipei City Government Electronic Process Data Center in 1979 to raise the City Government's administrative efficiency and to assist the promotion of urban development. The center changed its name in 2007 to the Taipei City Government Department of Information Technology (DOIT). Aiming at "smart city; good-quality life", DOIT is striving to promote e-government, Internet community and digital life, offering 24-hour omnipresent government services with complete communication infrastructure as well as fast and smooth Internet connection.

E-security; non-stop log-in control

For 24-hour non-stop services and prevention of confidential data from leaking out, DOIT needs a complete information security solution to control account log-in and the authorization mechanism that includes account add/change issues arising out of report of new staff, job transfer, leaving post, etc as well as the standard of system authorization and official document security.

DOIT indicates the required standard of product and service for government institutions is higher than that of enterprises, as government institutions stress more on information security control and the stability of information systems. Ares International Corp. has 30 years of experiences in assisting various customers to successfully implement information security projects and the experiences have helped Ares to construct PKI mechanisms with its self-developed ARES uPKI products for various government institutions and enterprises. "We are very satisfied with the innovative development and professional attitude of Ares." DOIT noted. "ARES uPKI products comply with various kinds of smart cards, offering automatic mending functions for smart cards while are suitable for various kinds of certificates, are flexible in structure and support cross-platform operations. Consequently, we have chosen Ares to provide services for DOIT," the institution explained.

Seamless cooperation enables successful information security project

During the implementation process of the project, Ares specifically designed all-encompassing information security products for DOIT. The project includes employee electronic ID pilot plan and electronic verification service. The employee electronic ID pilot plan includes a single-sign on (SSO) system for metro card, RSA digital signature, employee ID card and application software smart card; official document system combining digital signature and encryption mechanism; employee email signature system and personal file en/decryption system. The electronic verification service can assist DOIT to draft electronic verification service operation, establish a digital verification mechanism platform for the Taipei City Government, maintain the operation of digital verification service, construct certificate management center and SSO mechanism, establish maintenance center, offer electronic verification application consultancy service and develop mid- to long-term electronic verification service.

Since the project scope is significant and involves details of information security verification, various tasks of different project stages might not be carried out in a short period of time. For instance, single account, portal and various system verification integration will see issues to be solved. Fortunately, with communication of both parties, strong support from DOIT, experienced consultants from Ares and effective categorization of application systems and system implementation procedure, the issues were smoothly solved.

Simplifying process; single integration for multiple online users

"After the successful system go-live, the administrators of various institutions can add or maintain accounts by themselves, which dramatically ease the burden of the management team," DOIT expressed, adding that since the system already integrates SSO for tens of thousands of employees, the portal can be accessed by thousands of users simultaneously via the SSO mechanism.

In the meantime, the user operates in a highly-secure environment, bringing more convenience to the administrator, DOIT indicated, adding that the administrator can not only be in charge of employee post changes, but can transfer or discontinue authorization for any user. Each employee only has to remember a set of account and password, which both allows logging in authorized systems and sending/receiving emails. As a result, information security management is strengthened while no more multiple sets of account/password are required to be memorized.

Introduction of ARES uPKI

Ares International Corp. is famous for its leading software R&D technology and abundant experiences. Ares started Internet security software R&D in 2001 and is the first company in Taiwan to launch VA server. ARES uPKI is the largest-scale information security product in Taiwan and is adopted by the largest number of government clients. ARES uPKI is the only information security product in Taiwan that is Novell YES certified, with patented technologies approved in Taiwan, China, Japan and the US. With PKI solutions covering identification, electronic signature, en/decoding and authorization, ARES uPKI is the most suitable information security mechanism for all kinds of institutions.

More ARES uPKI information: https://pki.ares.com.tw/home_en.asp