In brief: Liberty Alliance announces interoperability test results

Also: GFI releases LANguard Network Security Scanner 7.0; RSA Security announces RSA Card Manager

• The Liberty Alliance Project, a consortium of companies and organizations that works on standards for federated identity, last week announced that products from several major companies have passed recent interoperability tests using the specification it backs. The Liberty Alliance promotes Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0, a Web services and federated identity specification. Earlier this month, several vendors -including IBM, NEC and NTT Communications – submitted products and services for anonymous testing and conformance with SAML 2.0, the organization said. Federated identity means allowing access to information among organizations using secured networks. One such feature is single sign-on, in which the entry of a single user name and password can be used to access several linked Web sites.

• GFI, a security and messaging vendor, last week released LANguard Network Security Scanner 7.0, which includes anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning to ensure that the most recent definition files are installed on user machines. NSS 7.0 also features multilingual patch management, support for Linux, a vulnerability feature that includes recommended action and tracking of unauthorized services. The software also scans wireless access points and USB ports to detect those services. The patch-management features support automatic download and deployment in various languages across Microsoft software. NSS prices start at $495.

• RSA Security has announced RSA Card Manager, Windows server-based software that acts as a repository and administrative distribution point for issuing smart cards and USB tokens. Card Manager, which costs $30,000 for 1,000 users, provides for the administration of multiple authentication technologies. RSA Card Manager is expected to ship next month.