RSA Security Conference: Day 3 Roundup

The biggest news out of the the third day of the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco: a gamut of computing industry leaders, including Google, Verizon, and CA, announced the formation of the Open Identity Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to building trust in online identity credentials. Here’s the scoop, along with the rest of the day 3 highlights.

The Open Identity Exchange (OIX), which currently consists of Google, PayPal,Equifax, VeriSign, Verizon, CA, and Booz Allen Hamilton, has a stated goal of “building trust in the exchange of online identity credentials across public and private sectors,” according to their press release.

Both the OpenID Foundation and the Information Card Foundation are backing the OIX, which gives them some technological footing to achieve their goals. Moreover, the United States Government has certified the OIX as a trust framework provider, and the newly-formed non-profit expects to use their new identity standard on federal websites to lock down sensitive information.

It’s an interesting idea, with a lot of backing. On the one hand, OpenID itself never lived up to its promise, and users still have to memorize dozens of passwords. On the other, the idea has never had this kind of major industry backing before. As with most things relating to information security, we’ll have to call this as a wait-and-see situation.

Other conference highlights:

• The RSA Conference Awards were presented. The Lifetime Achievement award went to Dr. David Chaum, Founder of DigiCash Inc., for contributions to cryptogryphy “[including] the invention of two anonymity networks – mix networks, the basis for virtually all modern anonymity networks and DC-Nets, including the invention of partial key techniques and the invention of cryptographic voting. A full list of awards can be found here.
• Ten security start-ups competed for the title of “Most Innovative Company.” The winner, Altor Networks, presented a solution for increasing security in the virtual networks established between multiple VMs.
• Something we missed yesterday: Cisco announced its new “Secure Borderless Network architecture”, which “evolves enterprise security by focusing on four critical anchors: enterprise endpoints (mobile or fixed), the Internet edge, the data center, and policy that is context- and location-aware,” according to the press release.

And that’s day 3 of the RSA Security Conference 2010. Keep watching The VAR Guy all this week for news and updates.