Network Associates Selected By Federal Govt. To Develop New Internet Security Standard

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, August 31, 1998

Network Associates Inc.'s advanced research arm known as TIS Labs has been awarded a federal government development contract to add security to one of the fundamental protocols of the Internet. Handed down by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the contract calls for security and anti-virus software maker Network Associates to create a new generation of the Domain Name System (DNS) in concert with the Internet Software Consortium.

Announcement of the award came during last week's national conference of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the official standards body of the Internet. The IETF meets to develop and revise evolving standards such as the DNS, which is used by all computers on the Internet to translate between host name and numeric Internet addresses. NAI's TIS Labs will help create a new generation of the standard by adding data authentication and integrity to the DNS system, which currently has severe security flaws.

"NAI's TIS Labs team continues to play a significant role in the area of advanced security research," says Fred Baker, chairman of the IETF. "This announcement gives them yet another opportunity to support the open standards process and provide security for one of the fundamental protocols of the Internet."

Prior to this latest project, TIS Labs had been awarded contracts to provide expertise in the specification of the DNS security (DNSSEC) standards and implemented prototype DNSSEC severs. Network Associates says the new contract to work with the Internet Software Consortium, which provides the BIND product to DNS servers around the world, is "the culmination of years of advanced research in this area."

According to David Conrad, president of the Internet Software Consortium, "[we see] a secure naming system as one of the fundamental technologies necessary for the deployment of widespread electronic commerce. As such, ISC is extremely pleased to be working with NAI in the implementation of security enhancements for ISC's BIND nameserver software to insure the integrity of the Domain Name System." n