RSA: IBM, Sun, others showcase security wares

With a record 13,000 attendees at this week’s RSA Conference, vendors on the exhibit floor had every reason to pull out all the stops. And so they did, with IBM, Sun, Computer Associates and many more using RSA as their stage to highlight new products and services.

IBM said it is expanding its biometrics offerings to include a USB fingerprint reader for use with any PC to authenticate the user’s identity.

IBM is working with German software provider Utimaco to offer a free license for file and disk encryption software with any IBM PC. In addition, IBM is teaming with Absolute Software, which offers a service for locating stolen or lost PCs through the CompuTrace software that can identify where the PC is by dialing out.

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With a record 13,000 attendees at this week’s RSA Conference, vendors on the exhibit floor had every reason to pull out all the stops. And so they did, with IBM, Sun, Computer Associates and many more using RSA as their stage to highlight new products and services.

IBM said it is expanding its biometrics offerings to include a USB fingerprint reader for use with any PC to authenticate the user’s identity.

IBM is working with German software provider Utimaco to offer a free license for file and disk encryption software with any IBM PC. In addition, IBM is teaming with Absolute Software, which offers a service for locating stolen or lost PCs through the CompuTrace software that can identify where the PC is by dialing out.

“The CompuTrace retrieval will be built into the BIOS of the new [IBM] T43 ThinkPads,” says Clain Anderson, director of wireless security solutions at the IBM Personal Computing Division. 

Companies that want the search-and-rescue service would need to sign up with Absolute Software, which promises to pay $1,000 if it can’t find a missing laptop in 30 days.

Sun says it’s partnering with both Symantec and MessageGate to add virus and spam protection to its Java Messaging System. Sun also is supporting the S/MIME encryption protocol in its Communications Express Web client for digitally signing and encrypting messages. And in other upgrades, the Sun Java System Messaging Server now supports the NFS protocol, which will enable integration with NFS-based products from Network Appliance for storage security for e-mail.

Shavlik Technologies took the wraps off the fifth version of its patch-management software, adding an e-mail reporting function to a designated security auditor for sending a message out every time a patch assessment is done. “Customers wanted this for reporting as part of the trend in complying with Sarbanes-Oxley,” says Shavlik president and CEO Mark Shavlik. “This way, status reports go out automatically.”

Shavlik also plans to ship a spyware-detection engine by the end of the first quarter.

Computer Associates used its presence at the RSA Conference to unveil eTrust Identity and Access Management 8.0, identity management software for establishing single sign-on, access and control for network use by employees or trading partners.

Bill Mann, CA’s vice president of eTrust Identity Management, said the four-module software suite can be used as separate modules, but they now all share a common interface and support the SAML 2.0 standard. In addition, the provisioning component in version 8.0 has added workflow functions based on business requirements.