RSA: Security vendors to build bridges at hot show

Security is a hot topic in technology circles these days. For proof of that statement, one need look no further than the buzz surrounding this year's RSA Conference in San Francisco, an annual gathering focused on information technology (IT) security.

Once the exclusive province of cryptographers, the annual conference has grown and diversified in recent years along with the IT security industry itself. This year's conference will reflect heady times for that industry, with a high-profile keynote address by Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, swollen attendance figures and a gaggle of product news from companies looking to build bridges between their products and those of competitors.

Weary after a year punctuated by major outbreaks of worms such as Blaster, Sobig and MyDoom, more than 10,000 visitors are expected to visit San Francisco's Moscone Center this week, where more than 250 exhibitors are displaying technology to stop malicious hackers, viruses and other online scourges, according to Sandra LaPedis, area vice president and general manager of RSA Conferences, a division of RSA Security Inc.

Attendance at this year's show is expected to be up by about 20 percent over last year, due in part to Gates' appearance at the show, an improving economy and a sustained interest among companies and the public in computer security topics such as viruses, spam and identity theft, she said.

Conference organizers have also changed tactics to try to broaden the appeal of the show, adding a separate discussion track on identity and access management and adding a private Executive Security Action Forum for Fortune 500 chief information officers (CIOs) and chief information security officers (CISOs) on Monday, she said.

Dozens of companies, large and small, are planning news announcements to coincide with the conference, with the need for better security management the dominant theme.

VeriSign Inc., IBM Corp. and others are backing a new program to develop an open standard for strong, multi-factor authentication that can be used across the Internet.

VeriSign plans to announce on Monday an initiative called the Open Authentication Reference Architecture (OATH), which will replace the patchwork of proprietary user authentication products, allowing users to seamlessly access services on corporate networks and the Web, VeriSign executives said. IBM Corp. said its Tivoli Identity Management product will support the new OATH architecture.

Sun Microsystems Inc. is also planning to announce changes to its product line at RSA that are intended to make network security easier to manage.

Calling its new security model "Infinite Access," the company plans to announce the integration of its Java Card technology with a wide range of the company's other software products. The closer integration will provide strong, multi-factor authentication "out of the box" (without requiring custom integration) for customers who use its Java Desktop System, the company's alternative to Windows, said Rama Moorthy, manager of the Security Marketing and Strategy group at Sun.

The idea is to make security ubiquitous, invisible to users and easy for businesses to use, Moorthy said.