CHECK POINT SOFTWARE EXPANDS OPSEC ALLIANCE TO INCLUDE PKI AND DIRECTORY SERVICES SOLUTIONS
|
OPSEC Alliance attracts 18 leading PKI and directory services vendors to provide customers with choice and interoperability NETWORLD + INTEROP, Las Vegas, Nev., (Booth #8279) - May 11, 1999 - Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) today announced that it is expanding the scope of its Open Platform for Secure Enterprise Connectivity (OPSEC) Alliance to include Directory Services and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), two technology areas that are critical to enabling enterprise-wide user management and scalable virtual private networks. This OPSEC expansion delivers on Check Point Software's open PKI initiative that was recently announced as part of Check Point Software's 1999 VPN roadmap. Check Point Software is committed to providing customers with unparalleled choice when selecting essential security architecture components, while also providing the highest levels of integration with Check Point Software's directory and PKI-enabled products. As part of this expansion, 18 of the leading directory services and PKI vendors have joined the OPSEC Alliance and will work through the Alliance to ensure integration of their products with Check Point Software's market leading FireWall-1 and VPN-1 products. The OPSEC PKI partners include America Online/Netscape (NYSE: AOL), Baltimore Technologies (London: ZGO), Digital Signature Trust Co., an affiliate of Zions Bancorporation (Nasdaq: ZION), Entrust Technologies (Nasdaq: ENTU), GTE CyberTrust (NYSE: GTE), GlobalSign, IBM (NYSE: IBM), Security Dynamics (Nasdaq: SDTI), SPYRUS, Thawte Certification, Verisign (Nasdaq: VRSN) and Xcert International. In the directory services category, partners include America Online/Netscape, Banyan Systems (Nasdaq: BYSN), Fujitsu, IBM, Innosoft and Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL). "Directories and PKIs are critical elements in building a scalable architecture for conducting e-business," said Asheem Chandna, vice president of marketing and business development for Check Point Software Technologies, Inc. "Customers must have choice when selecting a directory and PKI to support their multitude of enterprise applications. With OPSEC, Check Point Software is able to offer the industry's broadest choice of directory services and PKIs while also providing the certification of interoperability and support required to ensure enterprise-wide scalable security." Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technologies are vital to the growing interest in building e-business solutions with VPN products. Since the decision to use a given PKI technology is driven by factors beyond the VPN products themselves, such as regional or larger business issues, it is essential to support an open PKI approach. Check Point Software has gone beyond simply PKI-enabling its products by making a firm commitment to an open PKI strategy, allowing an enterprise to choose the PKI solution that best meets its need. Additionally, Check Point Software offers concurrent support for certificate authorities (CAs) from multiple vendors. Concurrent support for CAs from multiple vendors is a key enabler of extranets, where extranet partners might use different CA vendors. "More and more customers are implementing a PKI to enable scalable e-business and network security, and Check Point Software is at the forefront of providing these customers with an enterprise-wide security framework that enables truly interoperable solutions which include PKI-enhanced VPNs," said Paddy Holahan, vice president, marketing at Baltimore Technologies. "The momentum and industry support that the OPSEC Alliance makes is a great vehicle to drive Check Point Software's open PKI initiative, and Baltimore Technologies is pleased to take part in this initiative." "As the global leader in scalable solutions that bring trust to electronic transactions, Entrust Technologies is extremely pleased that Check Point is providing customers with greater flexibility and choice by expanding its OPSEC Framework to include PKI," said Nigel Johnson, vice president, Partner Marketing, Entrust Technologies. "PKI is a critical component to enabling wide-scale VPN deployment and Entrust/PKI is widely recognized for its ability to manage both keys and certificates to ensure that VPN cost savings are maximized." Check Point FireWall-1 and VPN-1 already have the most complete LDAP support available, and the addition of directory services to OPSEC will allow further integration with an increasing number of directory vendors to give customers best-of-breed choice. Security information, such as user name and password or X.509 certificates, which is stored in the directory, is automatically accessed by FireWall-1 and VPN-1 modules to enforce enterprise security policies. With this certification, security administrators no longer have to maintain separate user databases for each security application, thus reducing management overhead and significantly improving overall network security. "Novell applauds Check Point Software's commitment to ensuring that the many customers adopting Novell Directory Systems as their strategic directory can use Check Point Software's leading FireWall-1 and VPN-1 products to leverage their directory investment," said David Fleck, vice president, Developer Relations for Novell. "Check Point Software's OPSEC Alliance paves the way for the interoperability that customers require for enterprise-wide network security solutions." OPSEC is the industry's leading alliance of companies with products or services that have been certified to meet Check Point Software specifications for interoperability at the policy enforcement and management level. OPSEC embraces existing industry standards for integration, where they exist, and leads the industry with the creation of new interfaces to meet customer requirements for seamless integration. The OPSEC SDK (software development kit), a collection of open application program interfaces (APIs) and detailed interface specifications, represents the most complete, open integration toolkit available in the industry.
Demonstrations of more than 20 OPSEC solutions will take place daily in the Check Point Software OPSEC Pavilion (Booth # 8279) at the NetWorld + Interop conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center May 11-13.
Check Point Software Technologies
is the worldwide leader in secure enterprise networking solutions.
The company's integrated architecture includes network security
(FireWall-1, VPN-1 and Open Security Manager), traffic control
(FloodGate-1 and ConnectControl) and IP address management
(Meta IP). Check Point solutions enable customers to implement
centralized policy-based management with enterprise-wide distributed
deployment. Via the OPSEC Alliance, Check Point's products
seamlessly integrate with "best-of-breed" products
from more than 200 leading industry partners. The company
has U.S. headquarters in Redwood City, California and international
headquarters in Ramat-Gan, Israel. For more information, please
call (800) 429-4391 or (650) 628-2000 or visit ### 1999 Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Check Point, the Check Point logo, FireWall-1, FloodGate-1, INSPECT, IQ Engine, Meta IP, Open Security Extension, Open Security Manager, OPSEC, Provider-1, User-to-Address Mapping, VPN-1, VPN-1 Accelerator Card, VPN-1 Appliance, VPN-1 Certificate Manager, VPN-1 Gateway, VPN-1 SecuRemote, and ConnectControl are trademarks or registered trademarks of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. or its affiliates. All other product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The products described in this document are protected by U.S. Patent No. 5,606,668 and 5,835,726 and may be protected by other U.S. Patents, foreign patents, or pending applications. |