ISIT AE, a pioneer in data storage technology and systems integrator, is partnering with security and cryptography solutions provider Acette Technologies FZ LLC to assist brokerage firms in meeting the technology infrastructure required by the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA).

All brokerage firms offering online trading services to their customers must comply with the new SCA technical rules and regulations by the 6th of April 2008.

According to the new technical rules and regulations for offering online trading services, brokerage firms are required to provide data protection and security during transactions over the Internet.

A disaster recovery site with a replica of all server and backups of data application in real time must be maintained to ensure high availability and zero data loss. The requirements are mandated to benefit the security and communication between brokers and their clients.

Mahesh Vaidya, CEO of ISIT AE said:

'We are delighted to provide a unique range of products and services to the market to help ease the mandates imposed by the SCA on financial brokerage firms across the UAE. Our extensive experience in designing and implementing wholly compliant solutions that offer the highest levels of availability and full disaster recovery, together with our unrivalled expertise in servicing customers throughout the UAE, has allowed us to provide crucial storage services that meet the standards now set by the SCA'.

ISIT AE offers specialist services in the field of data management, disaster recovery and high availability, and in this case with a major focus on providing SCA compliance.

Mahesh Vaidya further added, 'Thus ISIT AE is uniquely positioned and networked to be able to design and implement 'best-of-breed' solutions for brokerages throughout the UAE. These solutions would be designed to ensure total protection against loss of data. For brokerage firms that may require a complete managed service, ISIT AE would also offer a completely hosted solution that provides for comprehensive business continuity'.

SCA requires client login to the broker's Internet trading portal to be done over a SSL session and the client to be identified through a one time password (OTP) or a hardware personal security module (PSM).

Acette Technologies will provide the security layer solutions such as the Entrust IdentityGuard Mini Token and related server software.

SSL certificates for the https servers hosted by the brokers for trading activity would be provided from the world renowned and trusted certification authority Entrust.

Sunil Sivanand, Managing Director of Acette Technologies, said 'The one-time-passwords generated by Entrust tokens are generated using highly secure algorithms, which ensures random production of such the passwords and can be associated back to the client for the purpose of validation. The use of hardware tokens with embedded algorithms is the ideal solution to ensure that the online trading mechanism is adequately secure.

Our security and cryptography solutions are from leading security solutions providers, while at the same time very competitively priced; particularly the marginal investment for the brokers will be minimal as their online trading customer-base grows into the future'.