Communications equipment company Lucent Technologies Inc has struck a deal with internet software security provider Verisign Inc to use its digital certificate technology in the Lucent Managed Firewall. The Verisign Digital IDs, as the technology is known, will be bundled with the Lucent firewall to enables controlled and secure access to an organization via the internet. The agreement establishes Lucent as the first company to offer the Digital IDs as part of a firewall offering. The digital identification enables companies to provide network access to employees, partners and customers, as well as applying them to electronic business licenses, which show proof of an organizations online identity. Lucent is confident that teaming up with Verisign will set a trend among other companies looking to make their firewalls more robust with greater levels of security. The companies maintain that a joining of their respective technologies can prevent significant enterprise security breaches, especially as organizations increasingly shift towards conducting business over the internet. The Verisign technology includes authentication, data encryption and data integrity capabilities for secure transactions between the browser and the server. The technology also enhances Lucent’s remote administration access, enabling administrators to securely access the Firewall server through the internet or a local area network using a browser on Windows NT, Windows 95 or Sun Solaris. Lucent will make the bundles Verisign Digital ID available with the enhanced version of Lucent Managed Firewall in April.
