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Netscape turns to VeriSign
November, 1998

Netscape and VeriSign have struck a deal to integrate their Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology, thereby expanding the use of digital certificates for securing Internet transactions.

The companies announced joint initiatives under which enterprise customers using VeriSign's OnSite PKI solution will receive integration with Netscape products.

In addition, users of Netscape Certificate Server will be able to expand their use of digital certificates for secure extranet applications.

Under the agreement, Netscape and VeriSign will deploy advanced PKI functionality, including certificate revocation, key recovery, directory support, real-time certificate checking and dual-key support. These features will be added during the next six months.

The PKI digital certificate agreement is designed to complement Netscape's recent positioning of its Mission Control technology as a meta-directory application, according to Brian Byun, Netscape's Mission Control group product manager. (See "Netscape will highlight Mission Control," July 27, page 5.)

"It's two components that can be deployed close together," Byun said. "Customers are using directories as a baseline for building security. This provides the ability to run an in-house security server, but get VeriSign certificates."

Having VeriSign sign the root keys of digital certificates can solve some annoying problems for digital certificates, analysts said.

"As a service, VeriSign essentially vouches for the key of your CA [Certificate Authority]. It solves the cross signing problem, which doesn't work very well," said Ira Machefsky, vice president and senior industry analyst at Giga Information Group, in Palo Alto, Calif.

Pricing for the service is yet to be determined.

Netscape Communications Corp., in Mountain View, Calif., can be reached at http://www.netscape.com. VeriSign Inc., also in Mountain View, can be reached at http://www.verisign.com.

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