California-based IdenTrust received the certification under the DoD's External Certification Authority program.

Complete hardware and software ECA certificate service is provided by IdenTrust for DoD industry partners and other organizations to streamline and strengthen identity authentication.

“We look forward to beginning a new level of support for trusted communications between the Department of Defense and its diverse partners,” said Andrea Klein, chief marketing officer for IdenTrust, in a statement. “IdenTrust combines proven experience providing authentication services to the U.S. government and financial institutions around the globe. Supporting the needs of both of these markets enhances our understanding of requirements and enables us to provide more flexibility in our solutions for safeguarding identities.”

The DoD requires that its contactors use DoD-approved identity authentication solutions during electronic data communications with the department in an effort to enhance trusted communications. DoD has awarded ECA certificates to only two other government contractors other than IdenTrust.

IdenTrust has two turnkey certificate services, a hardware-based t-Certificates and a software-based s-Certificates, which both have identity authentication, digital signing and encryption that complies with ECA certificate policies.