Microsoft Sells ID Management plan

For years we have been building security into our infrastructure with firewalls, VPN's, IDS/IPS, Antivirus, etc. but the industry and clients are finally realising that more is required. The emergence of Identity Based Security Models such as NAC and the TNC consortium architecture, and press around massive ID thefts and online banking fraud have pushed the focus back on identities. In a previous blog entry I discussed that 2005/6 was the year of IAM. Now Microsoft is getting in on the action which further cements this trend moving forward.

Microsoft last week laid out a model for a distributed identity infrastructure designed to simplify access to corporate resources and protect user privacy across the Internet.

The model begins with a seven-point conceptual representation of digital identity that Microsoft has been discussing with industry experts, including the open source community, for a month. Last week, Microsoft released a description of its Identity Metasystem architecture, which adheres to the conceptual representation. The company also said it was readying client, server and development tools for users to build an open and extensible identity system based on Web services protocols that is compliant with the Metasystem outline.

http://www.networkworld.com/nlsecuritynewsal1834