Products designed to boost security for mobile devices and on corporate networks are two of the main themes here at RSA Conference 2001 this week, with Motorola Inc., Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and the Internet division of Nokia Corp. all announcing new security moves and partners.
Motorola Inc. announced that VeriSign Inc. is providing it with an alternative technology to digital certificates for use in mobile phones and other wireless devices. The processing power available in wireless gadgets is limited, so devices can't always check to see if a digital certificate has been revoked, the companies said. VeriSign has developed a system that issues a new digital certificate every 24 hours, which makes it easier to secure transactions on mobile devices, the companies said.
VeriSign's system, which the companies call the Wireless Short-Lived Server Certificate, will be tested as part of a wireless application trial to be conducted by Motorola. Motorola's current WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) Server will be able to support these short-lived certificates, which are expected to be available starting in May, the companies said in a statement.
RSA Security Inc. revealed at the show that Matsushita, better known by its Panasonic brand name, has licensed RSA's BSafe SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption software for use in its wireless i-Mode phones in Japan. The companies said the move should make it more secure to access the Internet from an i-Mode phone. The i-mode service, operated by NTT DoCoMo, had 21.7 million [M] subscribers at the end of last month. Nokia Corp.'s Internet division announced that it will use Internet Security Systems Inc.'s (ISS) RealSecure application to help corporations protect their networks. Nokia's network intrusion detection appliance also has an auto-update device, which automatically checks for new versions of the software. RealSecure is available immediately through Nokia and partners of ISS.
Nokia also announced that it has co-developed an application that boosts the performance of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s firewall software running on Nokia's network appliances. The application, called Firewall Flows, was designed by the two companies to better the performance of Check Point's FireWall-1. The application is shipping now on all Nokia IP100, 300, 400 and 600 series security appliances, Nokia said in a statement.