Nissan Europe drives security with ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID
Nissan Europe facilitates the design, engineering, manufacture and sale of Nissan cars from locations across 34 European countries. The company's headquarters in Trappes, France employs over 12,500 staff.
Challenge
In 2001, Nissan Japan implemented a physical access solution which allowed its employees to securely access its sites using a smart card. Nissan Europe examined this model and decided to take it one step further by introducing a combined logical and physical access solution to improve security across the organisation and produce a single Nissan employee ID card.
Nissan Europe needed a solution that allowed employees to securely access and exchange sensitive information, as well as secure facility access for its 34 European locations.
Up to 30 percent of employees need secure remote access to the Nissan Europe IT network. These mobile workers insisted on authenticating the same way whether they connect to the network locally or remotely.
Nissan Europe also wanted to implement a solution that would easily enable future applications and credentials via a single dual-chip smart card.
Solution
Nissan Europe evaluated several card management software and card middleware solutions. Nissan selected ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID because it was the only field-proven solution that could scale to 100,000 users. It would also securely update smart cards post-issuance to add applications or credentials as Nissan’s needs evolved.
The success of ActivIdentity in a project with Nissan in Japan gave Nissan Europe confidence to deploy an ActivIdentity solution.
Graham Orton
Manager Architecture, Strategy and Security
Nissan
“Our main aim with the proposed solution was to reduce support costs, tighten security, reduce theft of intellectual property and take advantage of the existing Nissan investment.”
Following a successful proof of concept conducted, Nissan Europe worked closely with the ActivIdentity team on a two month pilot project. Initially the team tested the technology in one Nissan Europe site with 30 users; subsequently the pilot extended for another month across additional sites incorporating 300 users. During the pilot phase, six Nissan CMS administrators were fully trained, five databases were replicated and both operator roles and card profiles were implemented.
The team received positive feedback from the pilot and decided to start the full-scale implementation of the project. Nissan Europe implemented the ActivID® Card Management System (CMS) to manage the issuance and administration of the Nissan ID cards and the ActivIdentity 4TRESS AAA Server to enable strong authentication for remote network access.
The team implemented two CMS servers for Northern and Southern Europe. A new set of card profiles were designed according to Nissan’s requirements, taking into account both the existing cards in Japan and future PKI needs. Customized operator roles were also created to enable operation by local helpdesk and security teams.
In just three months over 5,500 employees could use their Nissan ID cards everyday for both physical and logical access. ActivIdentity was involved in the design and implementation phases of the project and worked closely with the Nissan Europe team to ensure the solution went live as planned.
Nissan Europe was impressed with the smooth integration of ActivIdentity technology, and the ease of management of card self-service issuance, post-issuance and One-Time Password authentication to a VPN.
Graham Orton
Manager Architecture, Strategy and Security
Nissan
“This complete and flexible solution enables us to remotely add new access to employee’s services, with a powerful role delegation to local entities in a scalable environment.”
Currently, over 7,000 users across 34 European locations are using a smart employee ID card. Each site was responsible for its own deployment, co-ordinated by one single European project manager. Users initialised the cards themselves. The project was heavily supported and praised by the management team.
Communicating and promoting the use of the Nissan ID card to all end-users was vital to the success of the project. The team held internal workshops for all local helpdesk agents, pilot users, executive management and all Nissan Europe ID card users. Marketing collateral was also created and displayed in all offices to remind users that they would be unable to log-on to the network or enter the building without their Nissan ID card.
Benefits
Reduced support and management costs
With over 7,000 employees using the Nissan ID card, the organisation reduced its helpdesk and support costs by spending less time on dealing with password-related requests. The organisation noticed a significant reduction in calls to the helpdesk after deploying the ActivID Card Management System. The software enabled users to directly report smart card-related incidents and rectify any issues, such as lost or damaged smart cards, via an online web console. These savings reduced the global investment cost by 50 per cent.
Tighter security across the organisation
The Nissan ID cards boosted Nissan Europe’s overall security and enabled the organisation to establish a standard secure European IT. Standardised authentication management ensured that the organisation could protect sensitive and valuable information across the global Nissan network.
Secure remote access enabled, allowing virtual office
The flexible and efficient solution from ActivIdentity enables Nissan staff to remotely create new smart employee ID cards via a strong and secure online portal. All mobile workers can now securely access vital company information across all sites.
More Information
ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID
ActivID® Card Management System (CMS)
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