eTrust Single Sign-On Eliminates Password Issues

Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union (LAFCU) has been serving the firefighters of the Los Angeles City Fire Department and their families since 1935. LAFCU offers characteristic credit union services to approximately 18,000 members. The company has approximately $525 million in assets and 100 employees.

	One subtle benefit of eTrust Single Sign-On is that it’s transparent to the organization. It works so well, we forget it’s there.
		George Kings, VP of Information Services Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union

The Challenge: Single-Password Access
Each LAFCU employee uses a Windows 2000 workstation from which he/she accesses up to 14 software applications a day that are necessary for performing his/her job. For each software application, there is a separate login ID that must be remembered. If an employee uses five applications in a given day, he/she must log into each application at the beginning of the day, and then log out any time he/she leaves his/her workstation unattended. In order to simplify this process, LAFCU decided it was in need of a single point of entry and authorization for each user.

The Solution: eTrust Single Sign-On
To achieve this goal, LAFCU chose eTrust Single Sign-On (eTrust SSO) from Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA). With eTrust SSO, users need just one authentication to access all authorized applications, significantly improving productivity. "The strategic initiatives behind choosing eTrust SSO were its ability to streamline the login procedure and control the expenses associated with it," said George Kings, VP of Information Services for LAFCU.

Before implementing eTrust SSO, LAFCU estimates the average time users and administrators spent on password-related activities per day were 15 minutes and five minutes, respectively. Both of these numbers were very conservative, according to Kings. "When you multiply the time spent on password-related activities by the number of employees and administrators, it comes out to 530 minutes a day." Since installing eTrust SSO, LAFCU has regained nearly all these lost minutes and has experienced some other, simple, yet important benefits. "One subtle benefit of eTrust SSO is that it's transparent to the organization. It works so well, we forget it's there," said Kings.

eTrust SSO Enhances Fingerprint Recognition Software
To simplify the login procedure for users even further, LAFCU installed fingerprint scanners at each user's workstation. SAFLink Corporation, a participant in CA's Solution Partner Program, provided the fingerprint scanners and the underlying biometric technology. SAFLink's fingerprint recognition software, SAFAccess, is CA smart certified with eTrust SSO, so the two products were tested and proven to work together.

Getting eTrust Single Sign-On up and running at LAFCU took about three days. The installation is that straight forward. "If there was any real time involved in setting it up," said Kings, "it was in developing the scripts to log into our specific applications. In the end, when you think about the short time it took for us to eliminate hundreds of minutes a week dealing with password issues, the business value gained was almost immediate."