Workers around the world access critical business information on Microsoft SharePoint and Outlook Web Access applications. IT managers can better control requests to see or modify business data, announced Comodo today.  By adding another form of identification besides passwords to user logins, IT departments can manage who accesses corporate information over the Internet and in cloud-based applications.

To help secure small companies and promote security best-practices, Comodo has released a free version of its Two-factor Authentication for Microsoft SharePoint and Outlook Web Access.

"If you want to make SharePoint and Outlook Web Access available via the Internet -- you have to secure it, and two-factor authentication is the best way to do it," said Comodo's CEO, Melih Abdulhayoglu. "When you are accessing Sharepoint or Outlook Web Access from inside the office, you are using the physical security of being on your local network.  Yet, once you want to access the services from outside of your company's local network, security becomes an issue. To ensure security, you must either use a VPN connection, which may be costly and hard to manage, or securely authenticate the user.  Leaving it unsecure can result in the information being publicly accessible."

"Two-Factor creates another layer of security for the cases when Sharepoint or Outlook Web Access is accessible from a public Internet connection by requiring multi-factor authentication.  You can control access more securely if you add another factor like a secure cookie or client certificate on top of the password."

Two-factor authentication seamlessly "double-checks" the identity of users logging on to SharePoint and Outlook Web Access.  Two factor solutions are the industry standard for verifying online financial users: they protect assets by requiring another form of identification besides the user's password.

In addition to passwords, Comodo's free version of its Two-Factor Authentication solution can be configured to use cookies, security questions, or one-time passwords using an alternate communication such as email or SMS. The enterprise version offers customers the option of replacing cookies with client certificates. Both the free and the enterprise versions rely on information stored on the user's computers. After installation, there is no change to the user's login procedure, making Comodo Two-Factor Authentication easy to deploy and manage.

Comodo Two-Factor Authentication for Microsoft SharePoint and Outlook Web Access is a wizard-driven solution, easily installed on any network without client- or application-side development.

The free download is available for Windows, Linux or Solaris OS. Free users are limited to 25 users, allowing IT professionals to evaluate Comodo's enterprise-grade Two-Factor Authentication without commitment or risk.

To download the free version, visit here and click on "Get Two Factor Authentication for Microsoft Sharepoint and OWA."

To learn more about Comodo, visit http://enterprise.comodo.com.

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