ProID creates a secure digital identity for each user. (Image source: 123RF)
Barnes Smart Solutions, a specialist provider of identity-security technology, is expanding access to the ProID workforce identity platform as its distributor across Africa.
Developed by European technology company Monet+, ProID is a comprehensive workforce identity platform designed to protect how employees access computers, business applications, corporate networks, cloud services and physical environments.
Through this partnership, Barnes Smart Solutions provides African organisations and implementation partners with access to ProID technology, local market knowledge, solution design, technical support and integration assistance.
Modern employees no longer access company information from a single computer inside a protected office. They connect to applications, cloud platforms, virtual private networks, remote desktops and business systems from multiple locations and devices.
This creates a difficult question for every organisation: how can it be certain that the person requesting access is really the authorised employee?
ProID addresses this challenge by creating a secure digital identity for each user. The platform provides multi-factor authentication, passwordless authentication, digital certificate management, electronic signatures and physical identity capabilities within a modular solution.
ProID can be used to protect access to:
- Computers and workstations
- Enterprise applications
- Virtual private networks
- Remote working environments
- Cloud services
- Physical offices and restricted areas
- Electronic documents and approval processes
- Sensitive transactions requiring stronger authentication
The platform supports mobile authentication and multifunctional smart cards, allowing organisations to select the authentication methods that best match their users, security requirements and working environments.
The ProID mobile application supports authentication methods including push notifications and one-time passwords, with biometric capabilities available on compatible devices. ProID smart cards can securely store digital certificates and cryptographic keys while also supporting passwordless authentication and physical access requirements.
Passwords remain one of the most frequently targeted parts of corporate security. They can be guessed, re-used, stolen through phishing, exposed in data breaches or unknowingly entered into fraudulent websites.
A password only proves that someone knows a particular piece of information. It does not necessarily prove that the person using it is the legitimate account owner.
Multi-factor authentication strengthens this process by requiring more than one form of verification. This may combine something the employee knows, such as a PIN, with something they possess, such as an approved mobile device or smart card. Biometric verification can provide an additional level of assurance on supported devices.
If an attacker obtains an employee’s password, MFA can prevent that password from being enough to access the organisation’s systems.
For modern businesses, MFA is therefore no longer simply an optional additional security measure. It is an essential control for protecting identities, remote access, cloud services, sensitive applications and business information.
Employees are often described as the weakest link in the cyber security chain. However, this does not mean that employees are careless or responsible for every security incident.
They are targeted because they have something cyber criminals want: legitimate access.
Attackers use phishing e-mails, fraudulent login pages, fake support calls, stolen passwords and increasingly convincing AI-generated communications to trick employees into revealing information or approving access.
Even experienced and security-conscious employees can eventually respond to a convincing fraudulent message. Organisations cannot build their entire security strategy around the assumption that every employee will identify every attack.
Training remains important, but awareness alone cannot stop every threat. Businesses must combine employee education with security controls that limit what an attacker can achieve when a password is compromised or a user makes an understandable mistake.
ProID helps organisations create this additional layer of protection. By requiring stronger authentication and linking access to a trusted mobile device, smart card, digital certificate or other approved credential, ProID can prevent a stolen password from becoming a successful breach.
“Employees should not have to carry the entire responsibility for defending an organisation against increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks,” said Susan Higgo, Managing Director of Barnes Smart Solutions. “Businesses need to give their people security tools that are strong, practical and easy to use. ProID helps organisations protect employee identities without making secure access unnecessarily complicated.”
A key advantage of ProID is its ability to connect logical and physical identity requirements.
Logical security controls access to computers, applications, networks and digital information. Physical security controls access to offices, facilities and restricted areas. In many organisations, these environments are managed separately, resulting in multiple credentials, duplicated processes and inconsistent access policies.
ProID can bring these requirements together through a single employee identity. Depending on the organisation’s needs, the same smart card or identity platform can support computer authentication, digital certificates, electronic signatures and physical-access functions.
This creates a more consistent identity lifecycle. When an employee joins, changes roles or leaves the organisation, their access rights can be managed more effectively across the systems and environments connected to the platform.
ProID is modular and can be adapted to suit organisations of different sizes and security requirements. Customers can implement the capabilities they need first and expand the solution as their identity strategy develops.
The platform supports widely used technologies and protocols, including PKI, OAuth, SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect. This enables ProID to integrate with existing corporate directories, applications, VPN infrastructure and cloud services.
ProID can be deployed as a cloud-based service or installed on an organisation’s own infrastructure. This gives organisations the flexibility to select an architecture that reflects their operational, security and regulatory requirements.
The platform can support businesses ranging from smaller organisations requiring straightforward mobile MFA to banks, hospitals, public authorities and large enterprises requiring smart cards, PKI, electronic signatures and more complex identity integrations.
As ProID’s distributor for Africa, Barnes Smart Solutions is responsible for developing the regional market and supporting organisations and implementation partners adopting the technology.
Barnes Smart Solutions works with customers to identify their authentication risks, understand their existing infrastructure and determine which ProID capabilities are most appropriate for their environments.
This includes supporting use cases such as:
- Passwordless employee authentication
- Secure Windows and workstation login
- VPN and remote-access protection
- Application authentication and single sign-on
- Smart-card deployment
- Digital certificates and PKI
- Electronic document signing
- Transaction approval
- Physical-access integration
- Identity lifecycle management
By combining Monet+’s technology with regional knowledge and local implementation partnerships, Barnes Smart Solutions aims to make advanced workforce identity security more accessible to organisations throughout Africa.
“The African market includes organisations at very different stages of their identity-security journeys,” Higgo added. “Some need to introduce MFA for a single high-risk application, while others require a complete workforce identity platform across thousands of employees. The modular nature of ProID allows us to build a solution around the customer’s actual environment and expand it as their requirements develop.”