InformationWeek

May 15, 2000

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Securant Debuts Single Sign-On Across Multiple Sites

Module manages authentication and authorizations for E-commerce

By George V. Hulme

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s companies partner in E-business cross-sales and promotions, they're connecting their Web sites at ever faster rates. But it's still not easy to securely exchange private customer data and authenticate and authorize clients across multiple domains. Last week, Securant Technologies Inc. joined the small band of companies attempting to address this problem by offering enhanced single sign-on technology.

Existing single sign-on products generally provide that capability within one domain, whether it's an enterprise network or a Web site. But Securant's ClearTrust SecureControl Multi Domain Security module links and manages single sign-on and transaction authorization permissions across multiple E-commerce sites that have implemented the technology.

"As E-businesses become more interconnected, they need a system that protects transactions as users move between networks," says Eric Olden, Securant's chief technology officer. The new module lets data be exchanged among Web sites via the Extensible Markup Language and encrypts the information before transmission.

Earlier this month, enCommerce Inc. shipped getAccess 4.0, which also supports multidomain single sign-on. The company, recently acquired by Entrust Technologies Inc., says its software lets E-business sites exchange private information for authenticated users via encrypted cookie technology.

The possibility of attracting consumers from other sites who are instantly authenticated and authorized to shop on its Web site is attractive to online insurance provider InsWeb Corp. For example, the Redwood City, Calif., company could join with insurance portals and state auto registration sites to support these technologies to "make the insurance shopping experience faster and easier," a spokesman says.

Phil Schacter, a director at the Burton Group, says business-to-business marketplaces can benefit, too. "This type of authentication management has always been done on a smaller scale within intranets and extranets," he says. "But when all these users sign onto large marketplaces, the need for some type of robust and scalable central management system is obvious."

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