Joins community of industry leaders committed to establishing Kerberos as the universal authentication platform for computer networks.
FREMONT, Calif. — TeamF1, Inc. (www.TeamF1.com), the high-performance embedded networking and security software company, today announced it has signed on as a founding sponsor of the MIT Kerberos Consortium, a non-profit group with a vision of promoting an environment where fully functional and interoperable Kerberos-based authentication and authorization will be as ubiquitous as TCP/IP-based networking itself.
Led by MIT, other founding sponsors of the consortium include Centrify Corporation, The Financial Services Technology Consortium, Google, Sun Microsystems, Stanford University and the University of Michigan.
Kerberos is a widely used computer network authentication protocol which provides strong authentication for client/server applications by using secret-key cryptography. TeamF1 has been a long-time proponent of Kerberos, and offers AuthAgent Kerberos, the company’s leading secure authentication product for embedded devices. AuthAgent Kerberos is a standards-based implementation of the Kerberos(TM) V Protocol (RFC 4120), and provides the “magic sauce” required for network client software as well as network services running on embedded devices to easily be Kerberos-enabled (“kerberized”). Recently, TeamF1 upgraded AuthAgent Kerberos to include advanced PKINIT support for PKCS#11 digital certificates, such as ones stored in smartcards and used in DoD CAC authentication.
“We are very pleased to be part of this organization which shares TeamF1’s vision of the future of ubiquitous secure connectivity,” said Mukesh Lulla, president of TeamF1. “Kerberos is now part of virtually all modern commercial desktop and server operating systems but still remains largely untapped in networked embedded systems. TeamF1’s AuthAgent Kerberos has been leading the way in making this technology available to embedded devices, and has helped many smart devices enable secure authentication for connecting to services on the network and for providing such services. It is our privilege to contribute back to the Kerberos development community that made this all possible, and to help further its efforts via this sponsorship.”
“We are pleased to have TeamF1 as a Founding Sponsor of the MIT Kerberos Consortium”, said Stephen C. Buckley, the Consortium’s Executive Director. “The expertise in embedded networking and security that TeamF1 brings to the table will enhance our capabilities to create state-of-the-art security systems for the world.”
The consortium will hold its official launch event at MIT’s Stata Center at 9:30 am EDT on September 27, 2007. Live webcast information can be found at Kerberos Consortium web site, www.kerberos.org.
About The MIT Kerberos Consortium
The MIT Kerberos Consortium was created to establish Kerberos as the universal authentication platform for the world’s computer networks. Building upon the existing Kerberos protocol suite, the Consortium will develop interoperable technologies to enable organizations and federated realms of organizations to use Kerberos as the single sign-on solution for access to all applications and services. It will also promote the adoption of these technologies so that ultimately all operating systems, applications, imbedded devices, and Internet based services can utilize Kerberos for authentication and authorization.
About TeamF1
TeamF1, Inc. a privately held corporation headquartered in Fremont, California, is a leader in high performance embedded networking and security software. TeamF1’s products enable secure networking of telecom/datacom and industrial equipment, and provide the infrastructure components needed for switching and wireless products in various market segments. For more information visit the company’s website at http://www.TeamF1.com or contact TeamF1 Public Relations at 510-505-9931 or email pr _at_ TeamF1 _dot_ com.
[tags]MIT Kerberos Consortium, universal authentication platform for computer networks, embedded networking and security software, TeamF1 Inc, Mukesh Lulla[/tags]
