Authentic8 announced Nov. 17 its virtual browser, Silo, now supports certificates stored on government-issued Common Access Cards.
“This release is the next logical step in making Silo the secure browser of choice within the federal market,” Authentic8 co-founder and CEO Scott Petry said. “In the last year, our public sector business has more than doubled. Support for CAC authentication ranked high on our customers’ list of requested enhancements. This release allows them to use Silo as a secure browser for accessing sensitive government websites.”
With this release, Silo will be configured with Defense Department’s public certificates. When a user attempts to access a secure site that requires CAC authentication, the cloud-based browser will query the chip on the CAC that stores user-specific digital certificates to validate the user. All communication between the virtual browser and the local device is conducted over Authentic8’s proprietary, encrypted protocol.
CACs can also be used to gain access to computer terminals. Based on Silo’s integration with the SAML authentication standard, the CAC authentication process can also be used to validate users before accessing their Silo profile.
As with other Silo capabilities, administrators can enable or restrict the use of CAC-based certificates in the browser session. Any activity in the Silo browser, such as file upload/download, form data entry, and copy-paste, are logged and encrypted with a customer-supplied encryption key. This enables full oversight and audit of user activity while maintaining chain of custody of user data, whether the user is accessing a public website or a CAC-enabled site.
