Huge RSA showcase highlights managed security

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By Brian Fonseca

(IDG) -- With Security expertise becoming an increasingly expensive but important commodity, security companies plan to focus on managed security services as a key selling point at the RSA Conference 2001 this week in San Francisco.

In addition, companies are pushing systems to handle the growing need for authentication of online transactions in the e-commerce world.

The cost and labor savings of outsourcing a security framework, whether as a pay-as-you-go model or as a monthly subscription, are becoming more valuable as enterprise budgets tighten, according to industry analysts.

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In turn, the MSSP (managed security service provider) market is expected to grow from $140 million in 1999 to $2.6 billion by 2005, according to The Yankee Group in Boston.

"If the choice is either don't implement the solution if you don't have the manpower or smarts to run it, or go with an outsourced solution, the better [choice] is to pick outsourcing," said James Van Dyke, an analyst at Jupiter Media Metrics in San Francisco.

At the RSA show, MSSP ValiCert will address both managed services and online authentication issues through a single hosted offering with the launch of its ValiCert Trust Services (VTS). Designed to secure and protect electronic transactions, VTS will provide credit validation, proof-of-transaction management, and transaction-dispute resolution, said Mark Rakhmilevich, director of product marketing and management at VTS, in Mountain View, Calif.

Rakhmilevich said VTS will target the financial services and health care sector, initially offering four vertical services: trust finance, treasury/cash management, health insurance claims processing, and product collaboration.

Some MSSPs are sticking to conventional enterprise protection. Based in Atlanta, Metases will launch its DefenseOne vulnerability monitoring and response service. The service routinely reconfigures an enterprise's security infrastructure on the basis of current security needs.

Another MSSP, Foundstone, in Irvine, Calif., will announce the availability of FoundScan, which delivers a detailed marker of a company's risk factor with special emphasis on vulnerabilities found in Microsoft technologies and custom Web applications, Foundstone officials said.

Systems bringing greater control and functionality to authentication technologies in areas such as identity theft and digital certificates will play a big role at this year's conference, said Peter Lindstrom, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based Hurwitz Group.

Also at the conference, authentication provider Rocketbridge, a Trans Union LLC spin-off based in Chicago, will launch its company with an integrated suite of authentication and identification applications targeted at financial services and e-merchants, said Rocketbridge President Jan L. Davis.

Authentify, in Chicago, will release Authentify/Register, a software product that enables audit trail creation, secure registration of digital certificates through real-time Web browsing, and an automated telephone call for voice identity storage.

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Computing by subscription
(PCWorld.com)
Outsourcers rush to meet security demand
(ITWorld.com)
Security protects bottom line
(InfoWorld.com)
Biometrics now viable as security devices
(Network World Fusion)
Legislature eyes cybersecurity
(Computerworld)
Lessons in laptop security
(Network World Fusion)
UN group seeks common ground on security
(Computerworld)

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