ICL Plc is offering a Generic Security Service Application Programming Interface, software developer’s kit, to users of its network security AccessManager software, which it says will make passwords and data secure from break-ins across heterogeneous environments. The application programming interface is the first plank of ICL’s Association Management, which will combine a single sign-on with user authentification, access control, data encryption and integrity. Initially available on Solaris servers and Solaris or Windows clients, the Generic Security Service is set for launch early next year, also under ICL’s System V.4 Unix. The programming interface was drafted by the Internet Engineering Taskforce as a means of securely linking applications on different machines over insecure networks. It has been accepted by X/Open Co Ltd and will also be incorporated into a future release of the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment. ICL says it has extended Generic Security Service for legacy systems so that applications developed with it will be able to incorporate a variety of security services including Distributed Computing Environment’s Kerberos, the European Commission’s Sesame as well as legacy mechanisms, and accept a standard encrypted piece of code containing user identification and password for an application.
