RSA to optimize Intel hardware

Pentium III expected to include security instructions

By Elinor Mills, IDG News Service

January 19, 1999 -- Intel Corp. and RSA Data Security Inc. have signed a cross-licensing agreement to optimize their products to work with each other's technology, the companies announced yesterday at the RSA Data Security Conference.

Intel spokesman Seth Walker would not say exactly what hardware -- processor, chipset or network interface card -- the company would enhance the security features of.

However, an analyst briefed on Intel's plans for its Pentium III processor said among the new instructions the chip will include are a few that "will be useful for people who are doing the kinds of coding and decoding necessary for encryption. That's a fairly important thing in terms of providing differentiation between Pentium II and Pentium III," said Nathan Brookwood of the Insight 64 consultancy in Saratoga, California.

"That could make a difference to certain classes of enterprise users" who may need a nudge to be convinced to upgrade their processor, he said.

The hardware boost speeds up the encryption software and if the processor doesn't have encryption instruction sets Intel would need to add a hardware accelerator to optimize the encryption software, according to Brookwood.

Intel also is extending its RSA license to include Elliptic Curve Cryptography technology, said Scott Schnell, executive vice president of marketing at RSA, during a keynote at the show. However, Intel's Walker said he was prohibited from confirming which encryption technologies Intel licenses from RSA.

For its part, RSA will in mid-1999 enhance its BSAFE Crypto-C and Crypto-J software developer toolkits that are optimized for Intel's planned security hardware features, Schnell said. This will enable developers to recompile their code so it has transparent access to the security enhancements in Intel hardware, he said.

RSA also announced partnerships with Compaq Computer Corp. and VeriSign Inc.

Compaq is expanding its current license for RSA's BSAFE Crypto-C engine and is licensing for the first time RSA's BSAFE Crypto-J Java crypto engine and BSAFE Cert-C digital certificate toolkits, Schnell said.

Meanwhile, RSA has acquired exclusive rights to develop and market VeriSign's OnSite digital certificate technology for use in RSA's new Keon 5.0 Certificate Server. The server, also announced yesterday, is the first in a planned suite of public key infrastructure server-level products from RSA that will enable customers to create and use digital certificates for electronic commerce. The new Keon 5.0 Certificate Server will be available later this year.

In addition to the certificate server, the Keon family includes:

Keon Security Server, for centralized security administration, user management and access control.
Keon Desktop, for file encryption, single sign-on and user credentials at the desktop as well as secure email and browsers.
Keon Agents, which are designed to create a secure connection from the desktop to the application server.
Keon Agent software developers kit for building in-house applications.

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Resources

RSA
http://www.rsa.com
Intel
http://www.intel.com
RSA Security Conference
http://www.rsa.com/conf99/