Patent ID: 7287271

Claim:
A system on a server computer system, comprising: a communications engine configured to establish a communications link with a client; a security services engine coupled to the communications engine configured to present to the client a plurality of user authentication protocol options, each user authentication protocol option having a particular level of authentication associated with it to authenticate a user according to at least one user authentication protocol and to determine user privileges based on the identity of the user and the level of authentication; a web server engine configured to present a set of available services based on the user privileges, at least one of the available services requiring additional authentication information to be provided before access to the service is granted to enable the client to select a particular service from the set of available services; a host engine coupled to the security services engine and to the web server configured to provide to the client executable service communication code that enables communication with the particular service; and a keysafe configured to store keys, each key for enabling communication between the client and service selected from the set of available services and including all additional authentication information required by the selected service for authenticating the user to the selected service, the executable service communication code functioning to retrieve a key corresponding to the particular service from the keysafe upon execution of the code.