CertiPath, a joint venture between ARINC, Exostar, and SITA SC, providing the first commercially managed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-based bridging mechanism to the international aerospace and defense (A&D) community, has announced that Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have signed agreements as charter customers to enable secure trusted identity assurance between the organizations and their partners and customers.
PKIs combine software, encryption technologies, and services to help protect the security of communications and business transactions on the Web.
The neutral CertiPath PKI bridge will create a foundation to link together the identity infrastructures of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman and other A&D industry leaders so that an individual or organization credentialed with one partner will be automatically vetted with other partners without the need to create trusted relationships between each and every individual and organization.
“In our business, it is vitally important to know that the persons we deal with electronically are truly those whom they assert to be on-line,” said Michael Daly, Director of IT Security at Raytheon.
“This is why Raytheon worked with Exostar, SITA and ARINC to launch CertiPath who will now provide us with the trust to assure the identity of suppliers and partners across distributed networks.”
By allowing companies and government agencies to implicitly trust each other’s credentials without the need to establish secure “identities” on a one-on-one basis, CertiPath simplifies PKI-use and reduces the cost of establishing and maintaining secure relationships with globally-dispersed customers and suppliers.
“Because of the size, scope and most importantly – the collaborative nature – of our projects, we needed a way to reduce the cost and complexity associated with issuing accounts and credentials to our supplier base,” said Kristina Erickson, Director of Venture Relations at Boeing.
“With CertiPath, Boeing will be able to accept the credentials of our suppliers and even our end customers – saving considerable time and expense in the identity vetting process, without sacrificing security.”
Customers with existing PKIs will realize a significant reduction in costs by only cross-certifying once to CertiPath, which intends to be certified to the U.S. Government’s Federal Bridge.
The Federal Bridge provides secure interoperability with most major U.S. Governmental Departments, such as the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Treasury Department, and National Air and Space Administration.
