Entrust Inc. has signed a deal with Clickatell to expand its ability to send one-time-passcodes (OTP) to mobile devices via SMS.

Oftern referred to as soft tokens, the partnership for OTPs expands the options available to customers using the Entrust IdentityGuard authentication platform.

"With 4 billion cell phones in use today, people depend on their mobile device for more than just making phone calls," said Chuck Drake, executive vice president of marketing at Clickatell, Redwood City, CA. "The partnership with Entrust combines what they do best -- secure access technology, with what Clickatell does best -- enterprise-grade, secure and reliable mobile messaging.

"Together, these companies provide an added level of security to help people access business systems, applications and networks everywhere using their mobile phone," he said.

Since 2000, Clickatell has allowed businesses, communities and governments to leverage mobile messaging to alert and notify users as well as share information.

Entrust secures digital identities and information in over 60 countries by utilizing Secure Sockets Layer, strong authentication, fraud detection, digital certificates and Public Key Infrastructure.

The new partnership allows technology to enable single or multiple one-time passcodes to be sent to a mobile device.

"People everywhere require remote access to business systems, applications and networks via software -- and internet-based tools -- in order to process a corporate or business payment, access a medical record of a patient remotely, confirm an online purchase, or in more general initiate use of any kind of password-protected solution or system," Mr. Drake said.

A common method used to allow the user secure access to these remote networks is to use a physical token that contains a password. The password on the card or chip randomly changes and updates every few seconds.

"Basically, when an end user enters in an OTP to gain remote access to a particular business system or application, the internal security system checks to see if the end users' ID credentials and OTP are a match within the internal security data records, and if so then they are allowed remote access as an authenticated end user," Mr. Drake said.

The Entrust and Clickatell partnership demonstrates how the mobile and security industries can work together to enhance the needs of mobile security.

"We envision a future where the convenience and ubiquity of the mobile platform is increasingly called upon by industries, governments and communities everywhere -- to play an active role in the overall safeguarding of identities and reputation management for a broad range of end-user constituents," Mr. Drake said.

"Lives can be saved using the mobile phone, specifically SMS, to enhance the security of our daily lives, like in the story of the Hudson River Landing where SMS was used to notify the officials to come to the scene," he said. "We think organizations will continue to use SMS in new and innovative ways to reach people and improve their lives all over the world."

Reporting done by Jordan Crook.