SECURITY FOR VIRTUAL PRIVATE INTRANETS

The economies and conveniences of telecommuting have made the technolo gically sophisticated home office a growing phenomenon. Businesses, ho wever, are facing a major challenge in extending the office network en vironment to employees' homes. Many companies have developed highly in tegrated enterprise networking solutions, which through a standardized desktop allow users on a LAN or secured intranet to easily communicat e and share data. When this connectivity is done properly-which is not easy-both employee and employer benefit. But it also carries a risk b ecause the enterprise does not control the home environment. How to tr ansparently establish the trustworthiness of home machines so that the ir interconnection to the enterprise can be extended via an internetwo rk? This article describes a proposed solution, secure identity-based loading. SIBL uses smart cards, operating system modifications, and ne twork authentication to provide secure, economical, and transparent ho me office environments.