San Jose, CA As mentioned in a previous iSource daily, supply chain tools have uses far beyond keeping the franistats flowing freely in the Frazakhstan facility. Now there is further confirmation that, contrary to popular belief, there's a real flashy side to e-commerce. You can't get much flashier than NASCAR, and supply chain tools are making headway among the superspeedway set.
Secure Computing Corp., which manufactures enterprise access control solutions, today announced that Hendrick Motorsports has chosen Secure Computing's SafeWord authentication and authorization solution for secure access to their corporate network. Hendrick is the racing home of drivers Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Jerry Nadeau, Jack Sprague and Ricky Hendrick. SafeWord allows Hendrick Motorsports to access their network via virtual private networking (VPN) or dial-up, while protecting the information from unauthorized access. (It might have an image of grease and oil, but stock car racing is one of the most wired American sports. The amount of telemetry and digital communications an average race team carries around would intimidate the special effects folk at Lucasfilm.)
"Our engineers and crew chiefs need access to the data we gather from races and daily activity, but we can't risk it getting into the hands of our competitors," said Chris Newsome, IT director at Hendrick Motorsports. "My LAN manager and I used SafeWord while working at another company and there was no doubt in our minds that it would meet our needs for secure remote access here at Hendrick."
Whether remotely accessing the network by VPN or dial-up, Hendrick engineers and crew chiefs are authenticated via SafeWord with a Secure Computing Gold 3000 token. The token generates a single-use password, which is not susceptible to capture and replay. With SafeWord, the racing team gets the access they need more securely than with fixed password systems.
"Whether a global enterprise or a single location company, organizations need a secure network infrastructure to protect their most valuable assets their information," said Vince Schiavo, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Secure Computing. "SafeWord provides customers like Hendrick Motorsports, and organizations of any size, with a highly secure authentication solution for remote access to mission-critical data."
