News for and about the Internet2 community

[Todd Sedmak <>]

VASCO Joins Internet2’s InCommon Affiliate Program

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.

Media Contacts:

For Internet2
Dean Woodbeck

734-352-7007
011-1-734-352-7007 for outside the USA

For VASCO
Jochem Binst

+32-2-609-97-00

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