Microsoft announces new Passport Federation strategy

Microsoft has announced its Passport Federation strategy to enable trusted, interoperable single sign-in across the Internet, and is inviting Web sites, enterprises and service operators to participate in the creation of an Internet trust network.

Passport federation will allow private entities to control their local resources while still being able to interact with people, organisations and software that are not within their control.

This federated model allows organisations to retain secure control over their user identities, profiles and other business data, while participating in a trusted network that delivers a unified experience to users. The trust network is built on a common set of technical and operational guidelines and is open to any organisation supporting those standards. Microsoft will lead the formation of this network by making Passport available for federation with other authentication systems.

"Most organisations face the challenge of extending seamless and secure Internet access to their customers and business partners," says David Setshedi, director .NET and developer group at Microsoft South Africa.

"The federated Passport functionality will enable corporations to securely bridge existing authentication mechanisms with external systems, and in so doing, simplify the lives of employees, customers, partners and IT managers who use and administer parallel authentication systems today."

Passport will support Kerberos 5.0, a widely adopted and proven open standard for authentication. The Kerberos standard provides a secure mechanism for creating trusted relationships across boundaries and removes the technical barriers that prevent the sharing of user credentials among independent, competing or incompatible systems.

Passport users can use one sign-in name and password across multiple Web sites and services. In addition, Passport offers significant benefits for Web site and service operators because it helps streamline sign-in and registration processes, giving customers a secure, customised experience. The advent of an interoperable Internet trust network will extend the benefits of Passport to enterprises and other service operators.

"The move is intended to facilitate a trusted, interoperable authentication network across the Internet," continues Setshedi. "Based on Microsoft`s .NET strategy, the Internet trust network will allow organisations to work together to unlock the power of Web services."