Verisign teams up with Microsoft on authentication

Speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Stratton Sclavos, VeriSign chairman and CEO, outlined a partnership with Microsoft that he said would bolster PKI in the enterprise and combine server operating systems with Verisign's authentication services.

The solution includes support for a range of strong, multifactor authentication options such as smart cards and security tokens.

"This allows customers to deploy a strong credential options utilising their existing Microsoft infrastructure," said Judy Lin, executive vice president and general manager, VeriSign Security Services.

The user authentication products will also work with several Microsoft applications, including secure VPN, wireless LAN access and secured e-mail.

The technology will include one of the first reference implementations of the Open Authentication Reference Architecture (OATH), which was announced earlier this week. OATH is intended to replace a plethora of proprietary products for user authentication and provisioning currently in use on the internet, allowing users to access services on corporate networks and the web in the same way.

The product is destined for release this summer.

Earlier this week, RSA also announced the integration of its SecurID product into the Windows log-on.