With security such a major issue, Rowley expects there will be a lot of outsourcing to IT security specialists. If you are a small operation, it is too difficult to stay ahead of the measures you need. Tivoli Systems, a subsidiary of IBM, operates under the information-security premise of letting only the right people into a network. Its Tivoli SecureWay includes access management software, policy software and a public key infrastructure system to identify and authenticate users, allowing access to internet and enterprise computer systems. Another area receiving more attention is public key cryptography.
Cryptography ensures confidentiality by coding a message using a secret key and an algorithm.
This scrambles the message, which the recipient can then decrypt using the original key. Public key cryptography uses two keys - one private and one public. Information encrypted using the public key can be retrieved only by using the private key. Public key cryptography is very secure, and is expected to have many potential applications, such as verification of digital signatures. The general manager of Tivoli Systems Australia and New Zealand, Steve Burke, says the primary objective of security products has been to keep out intruders.