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Netscape Embraces Smart Card Standard

The company will join nine others to make Smart Cards the standard for Web security.

By Marc Ferranti, PCWorld   

Smart cards, which have embedded microprocessors and memory to hold the certificate information, are typically credit-card size and fit into a reader, which is attached to a computer, or is incorporated into a special piece of hardware, such as an airport kiosk. Hardware tokens are hand- or notebook-size peripherals that attach to computers.

Netscape also announced that its recently launched Communicator 4.0 Internet communications package works with %dquotdigital certificates%dquot stored on a smart card or hardware token adhering to the RSA standard. Users with digital certificates stored on smart cards or tokens can use Communicator to access Web sites that require the digital certificate information.

Netscape officials likened digital certificates to a digital %dquotdriver%squots license,%dquot which users can present on the Internet when accessing electronic mail or data on corporate networks. Certificates are designed to deliver a stronger form of authentication than user name and password combinations by using public/private key cryptography, Netscape officials said.

Netscape and nine other vendors said they are supporting RSA%squots Public Key Cryptography Standard (PKCS #11) for smart cards and tokens, and are incorporating the standard into interoperable solutions for enhanced protection of corporate data.

The companies supporting PKCS #11 include: Bull Worldwide Information Systems, Chrysalis-ITS, Datakey, Gemplus SA, Fischer International, Litronic, Netscape, Schlumberger SA, Security Dynamics Technologies, and Vasco Data Security. In addition, Chrysalis-ITS, Datakey, Fischer International, Litronic, Security Dynamics, and Vasco Data Security all plan to deliver security products integrated with Communicator.

A user with a smart card, for example, can go to any computer that has a card reader and Communicator 4.0 and use Communicator to access sites requiring the user%squots digital certificate information. Earlier versions of Communicator (called Navigator) did not have the capability to read and transmit the smart card information.

Netscape Communicator with support for the PKCS #11 standard is available now from the Netscape Internet site.