Customer Success StoryUSDA/ARS

USDA Implements LEADTOOLS ePrint Terminal Server Editon to Send Secure PDF Documents to Universities and Remote Locations

the Situation:

The USDA was faced with a departmental directive to provide all National Finance Center (NFC) data to their customers throughout the United States in a secure form. The data includes payroll, social security and other personal information that is considered confidential. Limitations that they faced from the technical side include employees that are situated on University campuses and remote locations and rely on the University network and Internet access, with no control over security by ARS (Agricultural Research Service).

Originally, the confidential data was being delivered to USDA customers via clear text transmissions. In order to transmit data, users had to log in to 3rd party VPN software. Data was being sent from NFC to the users, directly to a printer, with no safeguards or encryption in place.

the Solution:

To ensure that the USDA provide the security mandated in their Departmental directive, they looked at several options, all of which were prohibitively expensive and difficult and time consuming to implement. They continued to research available options and discovered LEADTOOLS ePrint. "We were able to install, configure and test the software successfully with very little overhead or difficulty," explained Computer Specialist, Anthony Johnson.

The USDA is now using LEADTOOLS ePrint Terminal Server at their Headquarters location and is in the process of implementing the solution to all ARS components throughout the United States. They anticipate the full implementation to be completed by the end of August 2005. LEADTOOLS ePrint addresses the limitations with customers that are situated on University campuses and remote locations by allowing the USDA to send confidential NFC documents via PDF, 128-bit encryption, with password protection.

"Another added feature of using LEADTOOLS ePrint is that we can now email our confidential documents to our customers, in addition to storing the documents on our secured server in ePrint storage locations for later retrieval. Since our successful implementation, NFC has recommended LEADTOOLS ePrint to several other government agencies," said Johnson.

For more information about LEADTOOLS ePrint Terminal Server Edition, go to: http://www.eprintdriver.com/ePrintTerminalServer.html