PKI Forum News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For additional information on the PKI Forum:
Lisa Pretty, PKI Forum Executive Director
(650) 323-4571

SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 19, 2000 - The PKI Forum, a multi-vendor industry consortium created to accelerate the adoption of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology and PKI-based solutions as the trusted foundation for secure e-business applications, today announced the outcome of its third quarterly Members Meeting, held September 12-14, 2000 in Montreal, Quebec.

"We are starting to see good results, just nine months after being founded and with only six months of working group effort," said Lisa Pretty, executive director for the PKI Forum. "The level of expertise and contributions continues to increase at each of our meetings, and by the end of the year we should have a large number of deliverables to help advance the deployment of PKI."

General Sessions: "Certificates in Action"
The third quarter Members Meeting kicked off with a full day of presentations on successful PKI deployments across a wide range of applications including financial, government and wireless sectors. PKI Forum members use this input to develop success stories in a case study format, to refine best practices and to identify areas where deployment issues still exist. Each quarterly Members Meeting is held in a different geographic region to provide members with an international perspective. The next meeting will be held December 5-7 in Sydney, Australia and will cover PKI deployments in the Asia / Pacific region.

Business Working Group: Increasing Focus
The Business Working Group continues its focus on market awareness and education for PKI technologies and PKI-based solutions, with an increased emphasis on three specific market segments of interest to the PKI Forum membership: Financial Services, Government, and Healthcare. It has recently restructured into four primary subgroups, each with new chairs elected during the meeting: Market Awareness / Education (Phil Kranenburg, Xcert); Policy / Privacy (John Sabo, Computer Associates); Best Practices (Blair Canavan, Chrysalis-ITS); and Industry Applications (Sandra Salvatori, Visa International). The Business Working Group has published a new PKI Resource Page (see http://www.oasis-pki.org/resources.html) as a central location for PKI-related links. It will soon complete and publish a PKI tutorial and whitepaper, and has also launched a "PKI Notes" series to provide high-level descriptions and benefits of various PKI-based solutions. Other deliverables available soon will be an overview of electronic signature legislation and its impact on the PKI industry, and a best practices checklist.

Technical Working Group: Steady Progress
The Technical Working Group continues its focus on multi-vendor interoperability projects. Over the last six months, it has sponsored monthly interoperability "bake-offs" based on the Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) standard, with participation from a growing number of vendors. In addition, two workshops have been held to date on application-level interoperability through the use of digital certificates, with remote testing ongoing. Looking forward, the Technical Working group plans to initiate two new interoperability projects in the areas of Smart Card/Token Portability and Certificate Authority (CA) interoperability, and it will be defining a large-scale, multi-vendor interoperability project for public demonstration in the first quarter of 2001.

Since its formation by five Founding Members in December 1999, membership in the PKI Forum has grown to over 80 leading international organizations, representing the industry's focal point for important issues such as PKI interoperability, best practices, policy/privacy, and general market awareness. The sustained growth in PKI Forum membership over its first 9 months demonstrates the industry's commitment to multi-vendor collaboration as the best means to address these topics, with the ultimate objective of enabling organizations worldwide to more fully exploit and realize the value of PKI in their e-business applications.

Membership in the PKI Forum is open to all product and service providers, independent software vendors, consultants, integrators and end-user organizations that have a demonstrated interest in promoting PKI technology and PKI-based solutions. For a complete list of current members, see the PKI Forum Web site at www.oasis-pki.org/members.html.

The PKI Forum is an international, not-for-profit, multi-vendor alliance whose purpose is to accelerate the adoption and use of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI). The PKI Forum advocates industry cooperation and market awareness to enable organizations to understand and exploit the value of PKI in their e-business applications. For more information about the PKI Forum, see the PKI Forum Web site at www.oasis-pki.org.

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