News and information about InCommon Academy offerings

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

Ann Arbor, Mich. – March 21, 2012 – Internet2 announced today that VASCO, a leading software security company specializing in authentication products, joined the InCommon Affiliate program.  

InCommon, operated by Internet2, provides trust services for the U.S. education and research communities, including an identity management Federation Service and a Certificate Service. The 372 InCommon participants include colleges and universities, research organizations, agencies of the U.S. government, and private companies that offer web-based resources and services.  

The Affiliate Program provides the research and education community with a way to safely and efficiently connect with partners that can help build the necessary underlying infrastructure that supports federated access.

VASCO offers strong user authentication to faculty, students, and staff while helping them to move away from complex passwords and reducing helpdesk costs. VASCO’s patented DIGIPASS technology can assist InCommon participants with achieving their desired InCommon certification through increased user access security. Scalability, flexibility, and simplified provisioning tools allow for a cost-effective way to deploy two-factor authentication to large user populations. 

“Data integrity and availability of information pose a significant challenge for every organization. The combination of identity federation and strong authentication is a great step towards secure access to online resources for the higher education market,” declares T. Kendall Hunt, Founder, Chairman and CEO of VASCO Data Security. “Secure access to federated platforms is a high priority and this partnership creates a lot of opportunities for both parties involved.”

“We welcome VASCO to Internet2’s InCommon Affiliate Program,” said Jack Suess, chief information officer and vice president for information technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and chair of the InCommon Steering Committee. “Two-factor authentication is of more and more interest to colleges and universities, as well as to InCommon as we begin to introduce higher levels of assurance. VASCO’s experience in strong authentication technologies can provide a key partnership link for our participants.”

The InCommon Federation provides a secure and privacy-protecting method for giving individuals access to protected or licensed online resources, such as library databases, multimedia content, research information, and services provided by government agencies. This shared management of identity and access simplifies online privacy and security. Researchers, students, faculty and staff can access protected or licensed online resources from other member institutions and third-party providers while safeguarding individual privacy.

For more information, and a list of current affiliates, go to www.incommon.org/affiliate.  

About VASCO

VASCO is a world leader in strong authentication and e-signature solutions, specializing in online accounts, identities and transactions. As a global software company, VASCO serves a customer base of approximately 10,000 companies in over 100 countries, including more than 1,700 international financial institutions. In addition to the financial sector, VASCO's technologies secure sensitive information and transactions for the enterprise security, e-commerce and e-government industries. www.vasco.com

About Internet2

Internet2 ®, whose network is operated and led by U.S. research universities, is one of the worldʼs most advanced networking consortia for global researchers and scientists who develop breakthrough Internet technologies and applications, and spark tomorrowʼs essential innovations. Internet2 consists of more than 350 U.S. universities, corporations, government agencies, laboratories, higher learning, research and education networks, and other organizations. 

About InCommon

InCommon ®, operated by Internet2, serves the U.S. education and research communities, supporting a common framework of trust services and operating the InCommon Federation, the U.S. trust federation for research and education, and the community-driven InCommon Certificate Service. The InCommon Federation enables scalable, trusted collaborations among its community of participants. The Certificate Service offers unlimited certificates to the U.S. higher education community for one fixed annual fee. For more information, see www.incommon.org.