Most businesses are aware of the value in using encryption to
protect communications, but relatively few are using it because it
is perceived as expensive and cumbersome to use and manage.
So Voltage Security's announcement that its Identity-Based
Encryption, or IBE, "raises public key cryptography to a new level
for the first time in two decades," is likely to attract
interest.
The Palo Alto-based company adds that its products carry "a
significantly lower cost of ownership than existing solutions such
as PKI."
Traditionally, encryption uses a secret key which both the
sender and receiver use. However, transmitting the secret key to
the recipient is not secure. Instead, public key cryptography is
the norm for secure internet communication.
Each recipient has a secret private key, and a public key that
is published. The sender looks up the recipient's public key and
uses it to encrypt the message, and the recipient uses the private
key to decrypt the message.
With Public Key Infrastructure, or PKI, there are various
parties to manage. There is a certificate authority to issue and
verify a digital certificate that includes the public key; a
registration authority that acts as verifier for the certificate
authority before a digital certificate is issued; and a directory
holding the certificates and their public keys.
Voltage claims to remove the need for this infrastructure.
"When we created our IBE algorithm, we knew we had a solution
that greatly simplifies public key management," said Dr. Dan Boneh,
co-inventor of the IBE technology, Stanford University professor
and co-founder of Voltage Security.
"By enabling identities, such as email addresses and phone
numbers, to be used as public keys, we eliminated the need for
certificates, certificate revocation lists and other infrastructure
thus dramatically reducing overall system complexity."
Sathvik Krishnamurthy, president and CEO of Voltage, says his
company's platform now enables secure e-mail and files, and down
the road will enable secure instant messaging, voice over IP and
web services.
Krishnamurthy's company hopes to target financial services firms
and healthcare organisations which Voltage reckons will both
"benefit greatly from an easy-to-administer, easy-to-use secure
communication solution."
A 17-page paper that explains how the system works can be
downloaded from the Voltage web site. The company asks that you
first register and it will send you a link to a PDF.
