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Microsoft Adds New Security to WinFX

Windows Hardware Engineering Conference was a very hectic one, with many new announcements from the software giant. Almost unnoticed Microsoft has announced that the new beta 2 of WinFX is now available with full support for InfoCard. This new security technology can really change things in world of online communications.

WinFX is a core part of the Windows Vista operating system and a superset of the.NET framework and Win32 API. WinFX has been developed on Windows XP, so it will be available on both XP and Windows Server 2003 in addition to Vista. It consists of four elements: Windows Presentation Foundation, a new graphical foundation for 3D graphics, Windows Communication Foundation, a service-oriented messaging system, Windows Workflow Foundation, which allows task automation, and InfoCard, a method for securely storing and transmitting personal identities.

InfoCard will support two-factor authentication methods such as X.509 digital certificates, smart cards and MD5 hashes in the initial release, said Turner. The company is working with larger players, from banks to merchants to the U.S. Postal Service, to provide trusted third-party tokens, so a person could create an account on an etailer like Amazon simply by transmitting an encrypted token they obtained from the USPS. Because usernames and passwords have to be entered into forms, most identity theft and phishing traps are built around fraudulent interfaces, where the victim thinks they are logging into an official site of a merchant or commerce site. Token exchange eliminates that.