AT&T enhances its VPN services

AT&T is starting to flesh out its managed VPN service and taking on more responsibility for making sure that VPN users are who they say they are.

AT&T says it will support public-key infrastructure (PKI) and act as a certificate authority for its managed VPN customers starting later this year.

That means customers will be able to authenticate their VPN users with PKI. It also means they can receive digital certificates, which are used to authorize the swapping of encryption keys between devices using the VPN.

As a result, customers will be able to enjoy a more secure VPN service without having to set up their own PKI. And they won't have the daunting task of acting as their own certificate authorities, nor will they have to search around for an independent authority to issue certificates. They can get it all from AT&T.

Jonathan Cohen, AT&T director of advanced IP network services, would not say which PKI system AT&T is deploying to support X.509 digital certificates, but did say the system will be completely managed by AT&T.

The advantage of having an ISP offer a VPN and digital certificates is that it reduces the number of vendors involved, says Mark Buchard, an analyst at Stamford, Conn., consulting firm Meta Group. Companies such as VeriSign that can act as a digital certificate authority have an edge in terms of experience, but there is nothing fundamental about PKI that would prevent AT&T from providing top-notch service, he says.

The sheer size of AT&T could make it as big a player in certificate authorities as it wants to be.

The majority of ISPs have avoided supporting PKI internally because managing such systems is complex. AT&T is believed to be one of only three ISPs supporting its own PKI; the other two are Genuity (formerly GTE Internetworking) and smaller service provider Intelispan.

AT&T will begin testing its system in July with service availability expected later this year, Cohen says.

Lack of agreement on PKI bodes ill for VPN users
Network World, 02/07/s00.

VPN vendor pushes public-key infrastructure
Network World, 05/08/00.

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