In The News

Aetna's provider portal gets kudos for ID security

– Liberty Alliance has recognized Aetna’s provider portal for its deployment of secure identity-based applications for the proper authentication of clinicians and staff accessing healthcare data.

New Vendors Pass Liberty Alliance SAML 2.0 Interoperability Testing

– Liberty Alliance, a global standards organization, initiated to enable open identity standards, business and deployment guidelines and best practices for managing privacy, has announced that, Identity products from CA; NTT Software; Ping Identity; RSA, The Security Division of EMC; and Ubisecure have all passed their Liberty Alliance SAML 2.0 interoperability testing.

Making customers more revealing

– When the UK market research company CCB FastMap asked consumers which method they most wanted companies to use when communicating with them – e-mail, phone, letter and so on – 63 per cent ticked the box that said “Not at all”. Even where consumers have an existing relationship with a company, 23 per cent prefer not to have marketing communications from it. The rate rises above 50 per cent for some large utilities and banks.

CA Joins Liberty Alliance Management Board

– Liberty Alliance, the global identity community working to build a more trustworthy Internet for businesses, governments and people worldwide, today announced that CA has become a member of the Liberty Alliance Management Board. CA joins Liberty Alliance board members from AOL, BT, France Telecom, Intel, Novell, NTT, Oracle and Sun Microsystems to help drive the strategic direction of Liberty Alliance on a global basis.

Winners of Digital ID World's IDDY Awards

– This week I'm at Digital ID World which means I get to chat with folks I haven't seen in a while but it also means it's officially awards season. In a session worthy of the Daytime Emmys, the Liberty Alliance once again passed out its awards to "…identity-based applications built using Liberty Federation (including SAML 2.0), Liberty Web Services, Liberty People Service and Liberty Advanced Client specifications." Yes, it's time once again for the IDDY Awards!

Liberty Releases Guidelines for Data Management, Handling

– The Liberty Alliance has released the first versions of two key frameworks for how businesses can share and protect sensitive data in their networks.

Liberty Alliance issues guidelines for standardized identity assurance, privacy controls

– The Liberty Alliance today released the first versions of two key specifications aimed at taking some of the work and doubt out of federated identity schemes.

Holy grail of IDs

– It's not too far-fetched to call a federated identity management system the holy grail of authentication and access control. In its ideal form, it is intended to allow an end-user to login once – so-called single sign-on (SSO) – then access a multitude of resources, not just the servers and applications within an organization's perimeter, but those located outside the firewall, as well.

Anthony Doesburg: Bringing government services to the iPod generation

– The next big development in e-government should make the iPod generation feel at home. Called igovt, it's a service that will allow us to log on to government websites and securely do all manner of transactions.

Open-source identity scheme takes first steps

– Concerned that the Web 2.0 craze is catching on faster than security can catch up, the OpenLiberty.org community has released an open source code library to write Web applications that protect users’ identities and increase security.

Group offers open source security code to Java developers

– Open source identity community OpenLiberty.org Monday announced the release of open source code to help Java developers build privacy and security features into their Web 2.0, component-based and mobile applications.

Liberty Alliance to set out qualification criteria for participating in federated identity networks

– Identity management is as much about process as it is about technology. The definition of identity assurance levels, and the procedures that are needed to satisfy each level, go a long way towards making it possible for organisations that want to provide identity services, or to use these services, to align their business processes and to formalise their interactions. The four security levels used by Liberty are based on current US government practice. The launch should help to put some political and business momentum behind the standards and reinforce Liberty's standing.

BT Joins Liberty Alliance Board to Promote Federated Identity Management

– Robert Temple, vice-president of security technologies at the BT Group Chief Technology Office, said, "BT is expanding its role in Liberty Alliance to help drive a secure and privacy-respecting internet identity layer across applications, industries and regions."

SAML-compliant products named

– The Liberty Alliance has certified the first set of products that meet the General Services Administration's profile for using the Security Access Markup Language. Agencies can use these products to participate in the GSA's E-Authentication Identity Federation. In October, the agency announced that products used in the initiative must pass Liberty Alliance interoperability testing.

Liberty Alliance Unveils Improved SAML Certification

– Thanks to a new full-matrix interoperability testing methodology from The Drummond Group, HP, IBM, RSA, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs can claim full interoperability with each other and every other company that passes the Drummond tests is guaranteed to work with all of the previously certified vendors.