[June 27, 2002] Announcement: “IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign Submit WS-Security Specification to OASIS for Standardization. Advanced Web Services Security Specification Broadly Supported by Industry.” – “IBM, Microsoft Corp., and VeriSign, Inc., today announced they will submit the latest version of the Web Services Security (WS-Security) specification to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for ongoing development. The WS-Security specification is one of the first Web services standards to support, integrate and unify multiple security models, mechanisms and technologies, allowing a variety of systems to interoperate in a platform- and language-neutral manner. Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Cisco Systems, Documentum, Entrust, Inc., Intel Corporation, IONA, Netegrity, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and Systinet have all expressed plans to participate in the OASIS development effort. With this announcement, IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign are furthering their commitment to build and deliver standards-based security solutions that meet customer requirements. The three companies will continue to work together to advance standards-based specifications that will allow for comprehensive Web services security solutions as outlined in the “Security in a Web Services World” road map, which was drafted by IBM and Microsoft in April 2002. The WS-Security specification, which provides the foundation for that road map, defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions, or message headers, that can be used to implement integrity and confidentiality in Web services applications. Web services are applications that can be accessed through XML and SOAP-based protocols, making them platform- and language-independent. WS-Security provides a foundation layer for secure Web services, laying the groundwork for higher-level facilities such as federation, policy and trust…”