DASCOM Announces IntraVerse 3.0; Latest Release of Leading Centralized Authorization Solution Includes Major Enhancements.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 21, 1999--DASCOM, the Authorization Authority(TM), today announced IntraVerse 3.0, the first enterprise-scale authorization solution for all corporate network resources.

IntraVerse 3.0 is the first authorization solution to provide centralized access control for Web, CORBA, and legacy environments. IntraVerse allows organizations to provide new services, shorten supply chain cycles, and increase customer connectivity.

IntraVerse provides an authorization framework that lets an organization centrally manage security for its entire network. IntraVerse is an enterprise solution, which includes best-of-breed solutions for Web security, CORBA security, and an application VPN. Because IntraVerse provides a centralized security framework, when any one of these solutions is implemented, the framework is in place for the entire enterprise network infrastructure.

"Having reviewed the IntraVerse architecture with deployed customers during the Crossroads 99 A-List Awards research process, I was impressed that DASCOM had taken a truly enterprise approach to solving the problem of authorization," said Nina Lytton, President of Open Systems Advisors, Inc., which selected IntraVerse for the Crossroads A-List, the industry's most prestigious award for new technologies.

"The DASCOM customers we interviewed were using IntraVerse in leading-edge intranet and extranet contexts, and had chosen the product based on its ability to provide an authorization framework for their heterogeneous network application environments. I am pleased to see that DASCOM is continuing to address enterprise issues as it expands its solution with IntraVerse 3.0."

IntraVerse is securing some of the most sensitive types of intranet and extranet applications in use, including applications that provide Web-based access to sensitive financial information, at T. Rowe Price and Freddie Mac, and confidential Health and Welfare client data for the State of California.

"IntraVerse is enabling us to make more information available to our customers more quickly," said Kirk Kness, assistant vice president of application architecture at T. Rowe Price Investments. "When we were looking for an authorization solution we wanted an application independent framework, and nothing else met our needs.

"We appreciate the fact that IntraVerse provides application-independent reusable access policy management. IntraVerse 3.0 should provide enhancements that will enable us to extend our policy management framework. In particular, I am looking forward to seeing the enhanced AuthAPI(TM), which will enable us to manage a user's entitlements on a per application basis."

"The need for reusable authorization is one of the top challenges for enabling e-business today," said James Curtin, DASCOM CEO. "The Internet, and especially the Web, has created a paradigm shift in how the modern corporation looks at security. Organizations can no longer barricade their information resources - the challenge now is how to get sensitive information to the people who need it when they need it.

"DASCOM has been solving this problem since its inception. IntraVerse lets organizations do business as efficiently as possible, by making it possible to get sensitive resources to those who need them, while ensuring that only appropriate users can see confidential data."

"Our customers understand that in order to maintain their competitive advantage they need to make more information immediately available -- to their customers, partners and suppliers. They also understand that in order to do this they need to ensure that only appropriate people can access the information that is appropriate for them," said Greg Clark, DASCOM CTO and founder.

"There are two ways to tackle this problem. You can have your own developers write, test, and maintain authorization code -- and the associated user registries - in every application that you deploy, or you can deploy an enterprise authorization framework."

IntraVerse provides a framework that can be accessed by every application on the network, centralizing authorization management, and eliminating the need to maintain redundant information and registries. IBM has selected IntraVerse to provide policy management for its new SecureWay end-to-end e-business solution, announced separately this week.

IntraVerse 3.0 includes several new features, making it the most comprehensive, flexible authorization solution available. Recognizing that most corporate IT programs have been developing security infrastructure to solve various problems, DASCOM designed IntraVerse 3.0 with an extensible architecture that can be extended to encompass existing security infrastructure.

IntraVerse 3.0 includes three key integration points. IntraVerse AuthAPI(TM) allows custom applications to access IntraVerse authorization services directly. Through the Credential Acquisition Service, IntraVerse integrates with all third party authenticators, including commercial Public Key Infrastructure, such as from Entrust Technologies, Netscape Communications, Baltimore Technologies, and VeriSign Corporation. IntraVerse 3.0 will be Entrust-Ready(TM).

IntraVerse can integrate any third party authentication mechanism and has a mechanism to integrate third party authorization services and rules engines.

New features in IntraVerse 3.0 include:

IntraVerse Credential Acquisition Service.

IntraVerse uses this service to integrate any authentication mechanism an organization chooses, including PKI, ACF2, PGP, Radius, and custom third party systems. IntraVerse can use any authentication mechanism to establish user identity and credentials, and then those credentials are used for dynamic processing of access privileges.

Furthermore, IntraVerse 3.0 can use multiple authenticators, enabling an organization to match an authentication profile with a user set. For example, certain types of users who access sensitive resources might be required to use two factor authentication, while the human resources department could access HR data with a user name and password combination.

Extensible Authorization Service.

This service provides a mechanism to integrate existing authorization services and rules engines. The IntraVerse External Authorization Service provides the ability to require a call out to a third party system, such as RACF, Praesidium, or an entitlement server for authorization processing. If the third party system indicates that the user is authorized to access the resource, IntraVerse enables the transaction. This allows an organization to integrate existing services into the IntraVerse framework.

Enhanced IntraVerse AuthAPI(TM).

AuthAPI has been significantly enhanced to provide access to a fuller range of authorization and 6 management features. Developers can use AuthAPI to call directly to IntraVerse for access policy management.

LDAP Support.

IntraVerse 3.0 will support LDAP as the registry for enterprise access policy, enabling IntraVerse 3.0 to scale to millions of users. Organizations will be able to use the LDAP directory they prefer, including from IBM and Netscape directories.

Authorization for PKI.

IntraVerse 3.0 provides the first authorization solution for Public Key Infrastructure. IntraVerse can use PKI authentication to establish a user's credentials, and uses these credentials to provide access policy management to all network resources.

Enhanced SmartJunctions(TM).

IntraVerse 3.0 now supports SSL encryption for SmartJunction(TM) connections, with the ability to pass user credentials to multiple tiers in the transaction path. IntraVerse SmartJunctions are used to secure third party Web servers, such as Apache and Lotus Domino.

SmartJunctions enable the mapping of resources on any third party server into the IntraVerse namespace to provide fine grained authorization to those resources. This means that the application does not need to look up additional information on the user, speeding and simplifying processing.

IntraVerse CORBA Security.

IntraVerse 3.0 provides Level 1 and 2 CORBA security. Initial support will be for Inprise VisiBroker and Iona Orbix ORBs. IntraVerse requires no modification of existing applications to provide Level 1 security, and can be more tightly integrated with CORBA applications to provide fine-grained access control.

IntraVerse Application VPN.

IntraVerse 3.0 provides an Application VPN that lets you quickly and easily form extranets with your partners, suppliers, and customers. IntraVerse securely tunnels client/server TCP/IP communications through public networks such as the Internet and allows you to set access controls to enforce user authentication or data encryption of tunnel traffic.

This provides application level access control for any native TCP/IP client/server application, for example, telnet, ftp, NFS, Oracle, or SAP. This VPN capability allows organizations to deploy legacy LAN based TCP/IP applications in an Internet environment with access control and authorization -- without requiring any changes to the applications.

Determination of Quality of Protection.

IntraVerse 3.0 also includes innovative technology that allows an organization to dynamically determine the Quality of Protection needed for each transaction. IntraVerse allows an organization to set context sensitive requirements for what level of encryption is needed for a transaction.

For example, an employee accessing the network inside the building (and inside the firewall) may be able to use a browser that supports 40 bit encryption. However, the same person accessing the network over a remote connection from home could be required to use 120 bit encryption.

Platforms Supported

IntraVerse will ship on Sun Solaris, Windows NT, IBM AIX, and HP-UX.

General Availability and Pricing

IntraVerse 3.0 will ship late first quarter 1999. (HP-UX version will ship Q2) For more information, contact [e-mail]

About IntraVerse

IntraVerse(TM) is the complete authorization solution for corporate Web, client/server, and legacy applications. IntraVerse authorization gives an organization the ability to provide users the information they require.

Other products in the IntraVerse suite include the IntraVerse AuthAPI(TM), which allows users to build IntraVerse-grade authorization directly into their applications, and IntraVerse Manager 2.0 which provides an easy-to-use environment for managing corporate network infrastructure.

About DASCOM

DASCOM is a leading provider of scalable Intranet security solutions that secure and manage the enterprise network. DASCOM pioneered the term Network Security Management as an essential market/architectural space for the Fortune 1000.

For more information about DASCOM, please visit the web site at www.dascom.com.

The company is based in Santa Cruz, California, with international offices in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and the UK.

IntraVerse, WebSEAL, NetSEAL, NetSEAT and AuthAPI are trademarks or registered trademarks of DASCOM, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are acknowledged.