VeriSign Selects Chrysalis-ITS Hardware Security Server to Support New Trust Gateway Web Services Solution

The Luna SA network-based HSM provides unparalleled hardware protection for Web services security applications

RSA Conference, San Francisco, CA – April 14, 2003 – Chrysalis-ITS today announced its Luna SA hardware security module (HSM) server has been selected by VeriSign, Inc., the leading provider of digital trust services, to provide cryptographic key management and acceleration for its new VeriSign Trust Gateway solution.

Web services promise to deliver faster, more efficient and cost-effective application integration, however, critical trust and interoperability requirements must be addressed. The VeriSign Trust Gateway provides a solution for companies to offload security policy operations, deployment and management that are essential for securing Web services and other applications. The VeriSign Trust Gateway is a dedicated, standards-based solution that enables security planning and policy-based security management across disparate legacy and non-legacy systems.

Because XML and Web services rely on encryption and digital signatures to authenticate users and to encrypt and sign messages, secure key management is paramount, as is cryptographic acceleration to eliminate performance bottlenecks. HSMs are used to protect private and sensitive encryption keys from attack and compromise, as well as to offload cryptographic operations, which can burden application servers. Chrysalis-ITS has years of expertise in developing cryptographic hardware for use in the world’s most demanding security architectures, including VeriSign’s own managed PKI service. Unlike traditional direct-connected HSMs, Luna SA is a next-generation HSM that can support multiple applications and web servers across a network in a single device, which makes it ideally suited for web services architectures.

“Digital identities, and data encryption are fundamental to Web services standards, such as XML and SOAP. As such, cryptography and the associated secure management of cryptographic keys are critical ingredients of any complete Web services solution. Chrysalis-ITS is a pioneer in the field of key management and cryptographic hardware and we selected Luna SA as a hardware security device for the VeriSign Trust Gateway solution because it offers flexibility, trusted key management and aggregation capabilities in a network attached HSM,” said Judy Lin, executive vice president and general manager of VeriSign’s security division. “In addition, we have been working closely with Chrysalis-ITS to couple the VeriSign Trust Gateway with their Ultimate Trust Security Platform hardware to deliver turnkey, cost-effective security gateway solution.”

“As a leading name in Web services security, VeriSign is in a strong position to drive efforts to embed trust into Web Services and other applications,” said Randy Kun, vice-president, marketing and product line management, Chrysalis-ITS. “By its very nature, the implementation of Web services is highly distributed, and often involves numerous servers of different type. Luna SA is purpose built for this type of architecture because it provides a shareable multi-application hardware security device that is network accessible by multiple servers. This centralized approach to key management dramatically reduces HSM costs and simplifies HSM deployment for organizations deploying the VeriSign Trust Gateway, while ensuring best-in-class performance and security.”

Luna SA for Web Services
With the only high performance network HSM server on the market, Chrysalis-ITS is uniquely positioned to address the evolving needs of the first generation web services security market. The Luna SA, a FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) 140-2 Level 3 compliant HSM server product, offers scalable performance, and key management capacity to allow for the evolving application of cryptography and XML security, and increasing web services traffic levels that are anticipated. Luna SA provides a unique combination of security and performance.

Luna SA adds trusted hardware security to VeriSign’s TrustGateway solution involved in processing web service message flows, providing unparalleled security and performance for SOAP Messaging, XML Signatures, CA Signing Keys, Transaction Logs, Time Stamping, SSL Acceleration, and Message Logs.

About Chrysalis-ITS
Chrysalis-ITS is a leading vendor of hardware security products to secure and accelerate applications including electronic financial transactions, SSL, smart card issuance, document security and digital identity management. The company is revolutionizing hardware security with a line of appliances that dramatically simplify the deployment of secure applications. Chrysalis-ITS products power security solutions deployed to customers spanning the world’s leading financial institutions, service providers, and government agencies. Chrysalis-ITS products are delivered through a global network of distributors and value-added resellers. Founded in 1994, Chrysalis-ITS is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with regional offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. The company website is www.chrysalis-its.com .