With security at a premium — especially for Web services — e-business
standards group OASIS moved to
bolster its ability to create safer specifications Monday when it added the
PKI Forum as its newest member
section.
Vital for ensuring secure transactions on the Internet, PKI, short for
public key infrastructure, is a system of digital certificates, certificate
authorities, and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate
the validity of each party involved in a Web transaction. They essentially
query a user about his or her identity, and serve as gatekeepers that
monitor e-commerce exchange.
The PKI Forum is the main group responsible for aggregating PKI proprietors,
end users and developers, and will continue in that capacity under the aegis
of OASIS.
Victor S. Wheatman, Vice President and Research Area Director for Gartner,
said the move makes sense because “it is vital for PKI to become integrated
into applications.”
“The synergies among the groups within OASIS should help PKI move to the
next phase as an unseen but foundational part of the infrastructure,”
Wheatman said.
Wells Fargo’s Terry Leahy, who served as chair of the PKI Forum Executive
Board and now leads the OASIS PKI Member Section Steering Committee, told
internetnews.com that moving PKI Forum’s activities within OASIS will
help members from both organizations as well as serve as a shot in the arm
to the market awareness of e-business technologies.
OASIS already hosts an number of activities that address Web services and
security including WS-Security, the Security Assertion Markup Language
(SAML), the XML Access Control Markup Language (XACML), the Rights Language,
the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) and XML Common Biometric
Format (XCBF) and the Digital Signature Services (DSS) protocol.
OASIS President and CEO Patrick Gannon told internetnews.com aligning
PKI alongside other Web services and e-business security standards at OASIS
“makes it easier for every company with a serious stake in the security
agenda to be represented and involved in this work.”
Going forward, members of PKI Forum will join OASIS and be eligible to
contribute to the group’s technical work, while existing OASIS members may
participate in PKI committee activities without additional membership dues.
In related news, OASIS this week is also set to unleash SAML