VERISIGN INTRODUCES WORLD'S FIRST SCALABLE CROSS-CERTIFICATION SERVICES TO ENABLE INTERNET TRUST NETWORKS
Gateway Services Leverage VeriSign's Global PKI Infrastructure and Expertise in Trusted Policy Management
RSA DATA SECURITY CONFERENCE '99, SAN JOSE, CALIF., JANUARY 18, 1999—VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the world's leading provider of Internet-based trust services, today announced the introduction of VeriSign Gateway Services, enabling cross-certification of digital certificates issued by enterprises, service providers, industry groups and Internet communities of interest—either within a private certificate hierarchy or linked to the globally-interoperable VeriSign Trust Network (VTN). VeriSign's Gateway Services enable organizations to establish Certificate Authority (CA) hierarchies which follow published, auditable, and commercially viable industry standards and trust practices, backed by VeriSign's expertise as the world's largest and most experienced digital certificate services provider.
VeriSign's Gateway Services fall into three categories:
Cross-Certification into the VeriSign Trust Network—linking qualified enterprises' intranet and/or extranet CAs, or service provider CAs, into VeriSign's globally-interoperable certificate hierarchy;
Enterprise Cross-Certification—enabling enterprises, industry groups or governments to establish complex private certificate hierarchies which link multiple CAs; and
Industry Cross-Certification—linking organizations into industry-specific trust networks, such as SET for credit cards, ANX for automotive supply-chain management and the recently-announced Global Banking public key infrastructure (PKI) initiative.
"We've created an unmatched range of cross-certification services to speed the deployment of business-to-business trading communities, Internet-based supply chain management applications and electronic messaging and document delivery services," said Stratton Sclavos, president and CEO of VeriSign. "With VeriSign's Gateway Services, we can leverage our scalable technology platform, widely-deployed infrastructure and industry-leading trust practices to deliver broad certificate interoperability for a wide range of qualified organizations."
Interoperability of Internet trust services—that is, the ability to verify the identity and authority of participants in an online business transaction regardless of the platforms or products in use—forms the foundation of any secure e-commerce system. VeriSign's approach to wide-scale community-building is unique, since it addresses both the technological and policy-based implications of cross-certification. While virtually all PKI solutions now use the common X.509 certificate format—making the technical process of having one CA issue a certificate for another straightforward—wide scale cross-certifying networks cannot be built through ad hoc issuance of certificates between independent CAs, since trust does not pass transparently from one party to another. Trusted, wide-scale e-commerce can only operate successfully in a commercial environment in which common practices, security and service standards, audit provisions, and liability-sharing agreements are recognized by all participants, thus ensuring a consistent level of performance risk management. VeriSign's expertise in operating the world's largest trust network—with certificates issued to over 3.5 million individual subscribers and 100,000 Web sites, and on behalf of over 300 enterprises and 400 large-scale service providers—uniquely positions the company to deliver the services on which an unbounded cross-certifying network of CAs can be built.
VeriSign's Gateway Services are used to cross-certify individuals or organizations into private certificate hierarchies established by industry groups, governments or other Internet-based communities of interest, or into the globally-interoperable VeriSign Trust Network. The VeriSign Trust Network enables secure business-to-business and business-to-consumer communications and transactions on a global basis, leveraging VeriSign's broadly-distributed technology, which is embedded in over 100 popular applications, including the millions of browsers and servers in use across the Internet today.
VeriSign will showcase its new Gateway Services at the RSA Conference from January 18-20, 1999, with a cross-certification demonstration conducted in conjunction with Microsoft's Exchange Server. Gateway Services for both Microsoft Exchange Server and Netscape Certificate Server are currently available in beta. Gateway Services for enterprises and industry groups wishing to establish complex private certificate hierarchies are currently generally available as part of VeriSign's OnSite 4.0 solution. Gateway Services for non-VeriSign affiliates wishing to be linked to the VeriSign Trust Network will be available at the end of Q1 1999.
VeriSign, Inc.
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRSN) is the leading provider of Internet-based trust services and digital certificate solutions needed by Web sites, enterprises, electronic commerce service providers and individuals to conduct trusted and secure electronic commerce and communications over IP networks. VeriSign's digital certificate services for Web sites and consumers are available through the company's Web site at www.verisign.com. The company's digital certificate services for enterprises and electronic commerce service providers are available through regional account representatives, resellers, and global affiliates.
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