- Email: [email protected]
Companies provide secure online brokering
news tions of the State Encryption Management Commission (SEMC), a body that reports to China’s intelligence agency. This means that mobile phone handsets, Windows software, browser software and other applications that contain encryption as an ancillary function will not be restricted. It was not immediately apparent what types of products would fall under the definition of having encryption as a core function. Under the SEMC’s original restrictions, all businesses and individuals would have had to register with the Government any products containing encryption technology. They would then have to apply for permission to use the products.
COMPANY NEWS
Mr Fran Rooney of Baltimore commented, “This acquisition is a strategic step for Baltimore Technologies in Japan. We are now in a strong position to further develop our customer, partner and shareholder base in this exciting market. Japan is rapidly adopting E-business and Ecommerce and we believe that this deal is good value and is very well timed to capitalize on the Japanese Internet and mobile commerce growth opportunities.” NSJ offers the following services to its clients: • Security Audits. • PKI Consultation. • Security Application Design. • Security Application Development. For further information, contact Baltimore on: +353 1 605 4399; fax: +353 1 605 4388; E-mail: [email protected].
Baltimore buys E-COMMERCE NEWS stake in Japanese market Rapid integration of digital certifiBaltimore Technologies has acquired a majority stake in cates NSJ Corp. NSJ, a privately held company, is Baltimore’s exclusive reseller in Japan specializing in providing information security solutions for large corporations, banks and government bodies. This acquisition attempts to strengthen Baltimore’s position in the Japanese E-security market. NSJ has marketed and sold Baltimore’s PKI systems, cryptographic toolkits and security solutions and its customers include Sony, Fuji and NEC.
Entegrity Solutions Corp. has announced the Entegrity Trust Services Platform (TSP). Entegrity TSP provides Identrus member financial institutions and their corporate clients with a set of products and services that permit rapid and costeffective integration of strong security and digital certificates into the Identrus E-commerce trust infrastructure. TSP delivers rapid integration of digital certificates issued by Identrus Certification Authority (CA)
into B2B applications. These secured applications can then interoperate with the Identrus infrastructure and be used by both financial institutions and their customers on a global basis. The company’s aim is to enable enterprises worldwide to actively manage their Ecommerce risks through trusted relationships with their financial institutions. This capability will help enterprises expand global business and reduce the cost of transactions by utilizing the Identrus identity trust infrastructure as the platform for a broad range of E-commerce risk management services. Identrus is also providing global businesses with a clear path of resolution when issues arise during Identrus authenticated transactions. For further information, contact John Curran on: +44 1344 290 900; fax: +44 1344 290 901; E-mail: john.curran @entegrity.com
Chinese Web site hacked According to Chinese press reports, a leading E-commerce site in China has been attacked by hackers. IT163.com, a site that sells goods from 50 of China’s top shops, has been made inoperative. The Beijing Youth Daily newspaper quoted the company’s managing director, Chen Yongjian, as saying, “The damage on our Web site by hackers is huge, page contents files have been entirely destroyed and databases were damaged to varying degrees. IT163.com was bombarded with too many
simultaneous messages for the system to cope.” The Chinese police launched an investigation and found the hacker’s Internet address, however, the hacker appeared to have used a public educational network which could be difficult to pinpoint. The attack came at a critical time for the future of the Internet in China. New rules on online news content, Internet content providers, Internet service providers and online advertising are all in various stages of preparation. The IT163.com attack could complicate government discussions on how to best safeguard Internet security and which of the several competing authorities should be given the job of regulating Chinese cyberspace. Apparently, the Internet debate in China pitches the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Information, who want stringent controls on the Web, against the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Trade who fear that tight restrictions could smother the development of information technology in China.
Companies provide secure online brokering nCipher Corp. Ltd is to work with a Finnish Internet broker, eQ Online, Celo Communications and Sonera SmartTrust Ltd in an initiative aimed at providing a platform for secure share dealing via WAP-enabled mobile phones. The new mobile stock trading system is based on PKI, digital sig5
news nature and strong encryption. It will enable users to buy and sell stocks listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (HEX). Each of the companies brings its own area of expertise: • nCipher is providing the secure key storage for service providers’ secret keys and transaction acceleration with its nFast accelerators and nForce and nShield key management solutions. • Sonera SmartTrust is implementing PKI, digital signature and strong encryption technology on SIM cards in GSM phones to support secure authentication, data integrity and non-repudiation over wireless networks. • Celo Communications is installing the required routing software between front end and Web servers and the back end systems. • eQ Online is bringing its expertise as a high-tech online broker. For further information, visit the nCipher Web site: http://www.ncipher.com.
MARKET NEWS
Firewall vendors target smaller companies According to research recently carried out, as the firewall industry continues to expand vendors are increasingly targetting smaller organizations. The analysis of the network security industry, released in a report ‘US Firewall Markets’ in March 2000, 6
was carried by Frost & Sullivan. The research claims that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often feel they lack the resources to invest in a firewall. As a reflection of this, the industry is trying to educate smaller business of the risks of not have adequate network security measures in place. Last year the US firewall market grew 59% with revenues predicted to reach US$2.7 billion by the 2006. Many firewall vendors have produced scaled-down versions of their products in order to appeal to small office/home office workers and this new (and growing market) segment is now beginning to realize that any Internet or network connection could potentially be a point of entry for hackers.
PRODUCT NEWS
Virus scanner for E-mail as it arrives Mailgate Ltd, an Internet communication software company, has chosen Sophos virus detection technology to create a POP3 mail server capable of virus scanning E-mail on its arrival. Mailgate will integrate the Sophos AntiVirus Interface (SAVI) into its mail server, MailGate. This development will enable the SME networks to benefit from on-access server virus scanning in the same way that large corporate network servers are protected.
SAVI will integrate with MailGate to check all incoming, outgoing and internal mail for viruses before it is forwarded to the user’s mailbox. SAVI disinfects and quarantines suspect mail and then prompts MailGate to notify the user and system administrator. For further information, visit the Sophos Web site: http//: www.sophos.com.
Gigabit security appliance launched NetScreen Technologies has launched what it claims is the first gigabit security product. Called the NetScreen-1000 Gigabit Security System, the product is designed for highbandwidth, high-capacity E-businesses and enterprises as well as Web hosting centres. A fully configured NetScreen-1000 can support up to 500 000 concurrent sessions through the firewall. It is the company’s first product based on its GigaScreen ASIC encryption engine, which was launched at the end of last year. The GigaScreen ASIC encryption engine delivers 1.2 gigabits per second of DES encryption and 400 megabits per second of 3DES IPSec encryption, with or without simultaneous authentication. The firewall engine supports TCP/IP header parsing, network address translation and a flexible policy search engine that can search up to 25 million policies per second. The product is in beta testing and should be available by May.
Java-based secure application environment created nCipher Corp. Ltd has announced new patent-pending security technology that the company hopes will revolutionize the way E-business applications are designed and deployed on the Internet. The new technology provides application developers with a Java-based development environment for writing security-sensitive application software. Applications written to this development environment, when executed on a Hardware Security Module (HSM) platform, will result, the company claims, in virtually impenetrable secure execution of the application. This enables not just E-commerce data but whole business models to be protected by fast, scaleable security hardware. Through the application of nCipher’s secure execution technology, confidentiality of both application software and data are protected inside a hardware security module, preventing attackers from gaining access to intellectual property and private information that would otherwise reside on today’s generalpurpose host computers. By using standard digital signature techniques combined with nCipher’s existing key management architecture, only trusted software applications developed for the secure execution environment have the authorization to access and use the private keys stored on the hardware security module. For further information, visit nCipher’s Web site: http://www. ncipher.com
COMPANY NEWS
Mr Fran Rooney of Baltimore commented, “This acquisition is a strategic step for Baltimore Technologies in Japan. We are now in a strong position to further develop our customer, partner and shareholder base in this exciting market. Japan is rapidly adopting E-business and Ecommerce and we believe that this deal is good value and is very well timed to capitalize on the Japanese Internet and mobile commerce growth opportunities.” NSJ offers the following services to its clients: • Security Audits. • PKI Consultation. • Security Application Design. • Security Application Development. For further information, contact Baltimore on: +353 1 605 4399; fax: +353 1 605 4388; E-mail: [email protected].
Baltimore buys E-COMMERCE NEWS stake in Japanese market Rapid integration of digital certifiBaltimore Technologies has acquired a majority stake in cates NSJ Corp. NSJ, a privately held company, is Baltimore’s exclusive reseller in Japan specializing in providing information security solutions for large corporations, banks and government bodies. This acquisition attempts to strengthen Baltimore’s position in the Japanese E-security market. NSJ has marketed and sold Baltimore’s PKI systems, cryptographic toolkits and security solutions and its customers include Sony, Fuji and NEC.
Entegrity Solutions Corp. has announced the Entegrity Trust Services Platform (TSP). Entegrity TSP provides Identrus member financial institutions and their corporate clients with a set of products and services that permit rapid and costeffective integration of strong security and digital certificates into the Identrus E-commerce trust infrastructure. TSP delivers rapid integration of digital certificates issued by Identrus Certification Authority (CA)
into B2B applications. These secured applications can then interoperate with the Identrus infrastructure and be used by both financial institutions and their customers on a global basis. The company’s aim is to enable enterprises worldwide to actively manage their Ecommerce risks through trusted relationships with their financial institutions. This capability will help enterprises expand global business and reduce the cost of transactions by utilizing the Identrus identity trust infrastructure as the platform for a broad range of E-commerce risk management services. Identrus is also providing global businesses with a clear path of resolution when issues arise during Identrus authenticated transactions. For further information, contact John Curran on: +44 1344 290 900; fax: +44 1344 290 901; E-mail: john.curran @entegrity.com
Chinese Web site hacked According to Chinese press reports, a leading E-commerce site in China has been attacked by hackers. IT163.com, a site that sells goods from 50 of China’s top shops, has been made inoperative. The Beijing Youth Daily newspaper quoted the company’s managing director, Chen Yongjian, as saying, “The damage on our Web site by hackers is huge, page contents files have been entirely destroyed and databases were damaged to varying degrees. IT163.com was bombarded with too many
simultaneous messages for the system to cope.” The Chinese police launched an investigation and found the hacker’s Internet address, however, the hacker appeared to have used a public educational network which could be difficult to pinpoint. The attack came at a critical time for the future of the Internet in China. New rules on online news content, Internet content providers, Internet service providers and online advertising are all in various stages of preparation. The IT163.com attack could complicate government discussions on how to best safeguard Internet security and which of the several competing authorities should be given the job of regulating Chinese cyberspace. Apparently, the Internet debate in China pitches the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Information, who want stringent controls on the Web, against the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Trade who fear that tight restrictions could smother the development of information technology in China.
Companies provide secure online brokering nCipher Corp. Ltd is to work with a Finnish Internet broker, eQ Online, Celo Communications and Sonera SmartTrust Ltd in an initiative aimed at providing a platform for secure share dealing via WAP-enabled mobile phones. The new mobile stock trading system is based on PKI, digital sig5
news nature and strong encryption. It will enable users to buy and sell stocks listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (HEX). Each of the companies brings its own area of expertise: • nCipher is providing the secure key storage for service providers’ secret keys and transaction acceleration with its nFast accelerators and nForce and nShield key management solutions. • Sonera SmartTrust is implementing PKI, digital signature and strong encryption technology on SIM cards in GSM phones to support secure authentication, data integrity and non-repudiation over wireless networks. • Celo Communications is installing the required routing software between front end and Web servers and the back end systems. • eQ Online is bringing its expertise as a high-tech online broker. For further information, visit the nCipher Web site: http://www.ncipher.com.
MARKET NEWS
Firewall vendors target smaller companies According to research recently carried out, as the firewall industry continues to expand vendors are increasingly targetting smaller organizations. The analysis of the network security industry, released in a report ‘US Firewall Markets’ in March 2000, 6
was carried by Frost & Sullivan. The research claims that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often feel they lack the resources to invest in a firewall. As a reflection of this, the industry is trying to educate smaller business of the risks of not have adequate network security measures in place. Last year the US firewall market grew 59% with revenues predicted to reach US$2.7 billion by the 2006. Many firewall vendors have produced scaled-down versions of their products in order to appeal to small office/home office workers and this new (and growing market) segment is now beginning to realize that any Internet or network connection could potentially be a point of entry for hackers.
PRODUCT NEWS
Virus scanner for E-mail as it arrives Mailgate Ltd, an Internet communication software company, has chosen Sophos virus detection technology to create a POP3 mail server capable of virus scanning E-mail on its arrival. Mailgate will integrate the Sophos AntiVirus Interface (SAVI) into its mail server, MailGate. This development will enable the SME networks to benefit from on-access server virus scanning in the same way that large corporate network servers are protected.
SAVI will integrate with MailGate to check all incoming, outgoing and internal mail for viruses before it is forwarded to the user’s mailbox. SAVI disinfects and quarantines suspect mail and then prompts MailGate to notify the user and system administrator. For further information, visit the Sophos Web site: http//: www.sophos.com.
Gigabit security appliance launched NetScreen Technologies has launched what it claims is the first gigabit security product. Called the NetScreen-1000 Gigabit Security System, the product is designed for highbandwidth, high-capacity E-businesses and enterprises as well as Web hosting centres. A fully configured NetScreen-1000 can support up to 500 000 concurrent sessions through the firewall. It is the company’s first product based on its GigaScreen ASIC encryption engine, which was launched at the end of last year. The GigaScreen ASIC encryption engine delivers 1.2 gigabits per second of DES encryption and 400 megabits per second of 3DES IPSec encryption, with or without simultaneous authentication. The firewall engine supports TCP/IP header parsing, network address translation and a flexible policy search engine that can search up to 25 million policies per second. The product is in beta testing and should be available by May.
Java-based secure application environment created nCipher Corp. Ltd has announced new patent-pending security technology that the company hopes will revolutionize the way E-business applications are designed and deployed on the Internet. The new technology provides application developers with a Java-based development environment for writing security-sensitive application software. Applications written to this development environment, when executed on a Hardware Security Module (HSM) platform, will result, the company claims, in virtually impenetrable secure execution of the application. This enables not just E-commerce data but whole business models to be protected by fast, scaleable security hardware. Through the application of nCipher’s secure execution technology, confidentiality of both application software and data are protected inside a hardware security module, preventing attackers from gaining access to intellectual property and private information that would otherwise reside on today’s generalpurpose host computers. By using standard digital signature techniques combined with nCipher’s existing key management architecture, only trusted software applications developed for the secure execution environment have the authorization to access and use the private keys stored on the hardware security module. For further information, visit nCipher’s Web site: http://www. ncipher.com