InformationWeek

December 8, 1997

Not Just A Token Effort

Security Dynamics ties in single-sign-on tool, broadens focus via acquisitions

ecurity Dynamics Technologies Inc. is trying to remake itself into more than just your token security company.

Security Dynamics, whose name has been synonymous with its SecurID access token for more than a decade, is getting involved in everything from data encryption to smart cards that store digital certificates. The company has directly or indirectly bought into three other companies over the past two years. This week, Security Dynamics will announce a new version of the single-sign-on tool it got when it acquired Dynasoft AB earlier this year, making good on its strategy to deliver an enterprise security system.

Boks Manager 4.4 is now integrated with SecurID, enabling companies to control which network administrators can access and make changes to the single- sign-on system, which governs end-user access to systems and applications. In the first half of next year, the token will be fully integrated with Boks Manager, so end users who authenticate themselves with the tokens can be mapped directly to Boks Manager for access to systems and applications.

The Bedford, Mass., company will also roll out this week new versions of Boks Desktop and Boks Connect, so administrators can give users, each with a single password, access to a number of Web-based applications, as well as Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases.

The updated Boks Manager is the foundation of a future product, slated for 1998, that will tie together Security Dynamics' own ACE/ Server and security tokens, the Boks single-sign-on technology, Verisign certificate-authority software, and RSA Data Security encryption. Security Dynamics acquired RSA Data last year, getting a minority stake in Verisign as part of the deal.

Security Dynamics' goal for the future product is to provide companies with a single system that controls end-user access- via a combination of authentication meth- ods-to information in both new and legacy applications and databases. In addition, the system will encrypt that information as it moves across the network.

"They are becoming a one-stop shop," says John Halamka, a senior associate at the Center for Clinical Computing at Harvard Medical School, a Security Dynamics customer. "All the others in the market seem to have to license algorithms from them, so they are poised to be in a long-term, top position."

Going forward, Security Dynamics will focus on securing access to information, whether users are sitting on the corporate LAN or somewhere out on the Internet, says Dave Power, senior VP of marketing and corporate development for Security Dynamics.

For now, the company maintains that it has the core pieces to deliver that model. But with $100 million in the bank, Powers says, "I wouldn't say Security Dynamics is done with the notion of acquiring."

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