Initiative for Open AuTHentication (OATH) Meets Key Deliverable for New Industry Endorsed Reference Architecture for Open Authentication

SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- OATH, the initiative for Open AuTHentication, today announced that the organization has met one of its initial milestones with the release of version 1.0 of the OATH Reference Architecture.  Availability of the Reference Architecture document, which provides the technical framework for open authentication as originally envisioned by OATH member companies, was announced by the organization at Digital ID World today in San Francisco.

The Reference Architecture provides a roadmap for OATH member companies and their authentication customers towards a comprehensive industry-endorsed solution. The architecture document covers four main areas: client framework, validation framework, client provisioning, and a common data model.

The key guiding principles behind the Reference Architecture include:

• Open and royalty-free specifications for strong authentication
• Device innovation and embedded specified technology building blocks for strong authentication
• Native platform support
• Interoperable modules that enable best-of-breed hardware and software solutions through a framework of interoperable components.

“The delivery of this new reference architecture document was on time and on target, said Bob Blakley, OATH Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) Chair and Chief Scientist (Security and Privacy), IBM. “This represents the first step towards our collective goal for developing strong authentication products and technologies based on open standards. This document also reflects the ability of OATH member companies to work together to promote the development of new industry-accepted standards for trusted security and authentication technologies. Our intent is to create an open reference architecture that will serve as a powerful mechanism to foster competition and innovation among key solution providers in identity management, security service providers, and application developers – all towards a goal of universal strong authentication.”

The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) welcomed the release of the first version of the OATH architecture.

“FSTC commends OATH on their efforts to drive open, interoperable, accessible, and secure authentication solutions into the marketplace said Zachary Tumin, Executive Director of FSTC. “The OATH initiative compliments our efforts to define industry-level business and operational requirements for stronger mutual authentication solutions in financial services and supports our primary mission to foster interoperability in the financial services industry.”

“Authentication standards are one of the many technology security issues FSTC’s members have been studying,” said Jim Salters, Director of Technology Initiatives and Project Development at FSTC. “It’s great to have another top- tier industry group like OATH supporting our collaborative efforts by focusing on one issue and taking it to the next level.”

The Reference Architecture document’s client framework section addresses topics of authentication methods, innovation in authentication tokens for multifunction purposes or mobile devices, token interfaces for one-time password tokens, and authentication protocols. The validation framework covers interfaces for protocol and validation handlers, and protocols used by applications to authenticate a user’s credentials. OATH will develop a framework to let vendors develop standards-based provisioning protocols and evaluate the need to standardize on one or more provisioning protocols to target specific credential types. OATH will encourage the definition of standard user store extensions and OTP token meta-data to support open authentication.

The Reference Architecture document is free and available to interested organizations at http://www.openauthentication.org/reg.asp. Registration is required to access the document.

About the Initiative for Open AuTHentication The Initiative for Open AuTHentication (OATH) is a collaboration of leading device, platform and application companies. OATH participants hope to foster use of strong authentication across networks, devices and applications. OATH participants work collectively to facilitate standards work and build reference architecture for open authentication while evangelizing the benefits of strong interoperable authentication in a networked world. OATH is actively seeking all participants who share a common vision of open authentication.

OATH is dedicated to helping customers reduce the cost and complexity of deploying strong authentication within enterprises, and across the Internet. Since its formation, OATH’s membership includes security industry leaders from token manufacturers, platform vendors, smartcard providers, and security services companies. End user companies are joining OATH to add their voice and ideas towards the goal of open authentication.

Some current OATH members include: ActivCard, Inc.; Aladdin Knowledge Systems; ARM; Assa Abloy ITG; AudioSmartCard; Authenex, Inc.; Aventail Corporation; Axalto, Inc.; BEA Systems; BMC Software; Checkpoint Software Technologies; Digital Persona; Diversinet Corp.; Entrust Technologies, Inc.; Forum Systems, Inc.; Gemplus Corp; IBM; IMCentric, Inc.; iovation; Juniper Networks, Inc.; K.K. Athena Smartcard Solutions; Livo Technologies SA; Passlogix, Inc.; Phoenix Technologies Ltd.; Protocom Development Systems, RedCannon Security, Inc.; SafeNet, Inc.; Signify; Smart Card Alliance; TriCipher, Inc.; VASCO Data Security; and VeriSign, Inc.

To learn how to participate, e-mail info@openauthentication.org or visit http://www.openauthentication.org.