Verisign, Microsoft Team Up On Authentication

VeriSign is working with Microsoft to provide authentication services that combine Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with VeriSign's authentication services.

The companies are expected to unveil the partnership on Wednesday during a keynote speech by VeriSign Chairman and CEO Stratton Sclavos at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Plans call for the service to allow seamless provisioning of desktop PKI credentials to include additional strong credentials, such as one-time password (OTP) tokens, PKI tokens, smart cards and desktop PKI. The service also will allow network administrators to use Microsoft Active Directory to manage users and Microsoft Management Console to provision credentials.

"Ours is an open reference architecture, so it can work with authentication products from multiple vendors," said Mark Griffiths, vice president of security services at VeriSign, Mountain View, Calif. "Using our OATH open authentication infrastructure, we are able to authenticate over the Internet and, therefore, support a variety of authentication methods from a number of different vendors."

The service is slated to become generally available this summer, according to VeriSign.The VeriSign-Microsoft alliance comes on the heels of a similar announcement by RSA and Microsoft. On Tuesday, the companies said RSA plans to enhance its SecurID tokens for the Microsoft Windows OS to provide single sign-on and environment-agnostic secure environments. Also, on Monday, VeriSign unveiled its OATH open authentication solution.

"The major difference is that RSA's [offering] is a proprietary architecture, whereas ours is an open architecture," Griffiths said. "Through OATH, we will be offering the infrastructure--in which the authentication will be done over the Internet--and delivering tokens to help stimulate the market."

VeriSign has signed an agreement with Aladdin Systems to deliver tokens, Griffiths said. OATH is slated to enter beta by April and become generally available by the end of this summer, he added.

OATH presents a tremendous opportunity for the channel, especially in the small and midsize markets, according to Griffiths. "This will be sold on a per-year, per-user basis," he said. "We are making the solution simpler for the end user, which will make it simpler for the reseller [to sell] as well."

Article appears courtesy of CRN.0