PLEASANTON, Calif., June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the OpenSEA
Alliance announced its 802.1X supplicant has been accepted into the
Wi-Fi Alliance's Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) test bed. The acceptance
is an important milestone in the development of open security standards
for wireless networking and continues the momentum towards OpenSEA's
goal of promoting the development and distribution of an open source
802.1X supplicant. With the acceptance of the OpenSEA supplicant, the
WPA testbed will now include two open source and two commercial
supplicants, reflecting the maturity of open source implementations of
key wireless security protocols. With the new test bed components, the
Wi-Fi Alliance is adopting the same open source software already used
by many end users worldwide.
"Strong security is critical to enterprise networks and Wi-Fi
Protected Access (WPA2) is at the heart of Wi-Fi(tm) CERTIFIED testing
for interoperability," said Wi-Fi Alliance executive director Edgar
Figueroa. "OpenSEA's participation in this program is instrumental in
ensuring that enterprise users get the full benefit of the latest
secure, interoperable wireless technology."
"The Open1X Project is pleased to be selected for the Wi-Fi
Alliance's WPA certification testbed. Open source software has a long
history of supporting the development and testing of open industry
standards by providing reference implementations. Product vendors and
end users rely on proven interoperable technologies when creating open
standards, and the user community benefits from readily available
source code that allows users to directly participate in the
development of the technology. As many new types of wireless devices
continue to be developed, portable reference code for wireless security
will become increasingly important," said Matthew Gast, a board member
of the OpenSEA Alliance and Chief Strategist at Trapeze Networks.
About 802.1X, Authenticators and Supplicants
802.1X is an IEEE standard providing authentication in LANs. It is
used extensively in 802.11 wireless security and is a part of WPA, and
is increasingly being used in wired Ethernet environments as well. The
802.1X specification provides an authentication framework enabling
endpoint devices to be authenticated by a central authentication
service using the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). When a
client presents valid user credentials, the authentication server sends
an "accepted" message to the authenticator which then grants network
access to the supplicant.
The OpenSEA Alliance was formed in 2007 by leading networking and
security technology companies, including Symantec Corporation,
TippingPoint, and Trapeze Networks, in conjunction with JANET(UK). SEA
is an acronym for "Secure Edge Access." The group uses the word "open"
because it develops and promotes open-source offerings. Likewise,
OpenSEA has a strong preference for implementing each component with
open standards. As developers of many of the technology components,
OpenSEA Alliance members are also keenly aware of the potential for a
"sea change" as technologies and products supporting or leveraging
OpenSEA's offerings gain broad acceptance and pervasive deployment.
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