E.ON Energie chooses OMNIKEY smart card readers

The smart card used in conjunction with the OMNIKEY CardMan® 3121 and CardMan 4040 readers enables the employees of E.ON Energie to log onto their computers, gain secure access to personal data on the corporate intranet and encrypt emails. The OMNIKEY CardMan® 3121 stand-alone smart card reader is utilized to secure access to the desktop computers at E.ON, while the CardMan® 4040 PCMCIA reader is used for securing the company’s laptops. By means of the smart card (“something you have”) and the individual PIN (“something you know”) E.ON Energie employees gain secure access to “My HR”, the company’s employee web portal, as well as to the company’s SAP system. Here they are able to change their profile data directly, automatically initialize numerous internal processes and supervise process status. Every E.ON Energie employee is also provided with three personal PKI certificates on his smart credential in addition to access control and cafeteria payment functions. With the help of the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), encryption and digital signature functions as well as access to the E.ON Energie SAP portal are thus enabled. Securing sensitive company information as well as protecting the personal employee data are considered as highest priority at E.ON Energie. As password-based solutions could not guarantee the required level of security, the company opted to deploy a smart card based solution. The phased roll-out of the smart credentials to E.ON Energie employees began in November 2004 within the context of a company-wide deployment. By the end of 2006, all 40.000 E.ON Energie employees will be equipped with the G&D smart card and the OMNIKEY smart card reader. After having diligently evaluated all available technologies in the preliminary stages of the project, E.ON Energie choses the G&D StarSign® smart card product line together with OMNIKEY’s latest generation of the CardMan® reader family for its smart employee credential solution. In addition to satisfying all the technical requirements, the joint solution was selected by E.ON Energie also for its ease of use.