Redhat announced Red Hat Certificate System

Red Hat has unveiled an initiative dubbed "Security in a Networked World" at the LinuxWorld tradeshow in San Francisco.

As part of the program, the Linux vendor showcased its Red Hat Certificate System that allows organizations to manage security certificates used to sign e-mails, or authenticate users for online banking applications. It also supports authentication through the use of smartcards.

Red Hat has been working with the Apache Foundation to add support for the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client through the use of Apache"s open source Network Security Service Libraries.

The collaboration will allow users of both systems to send and receive authenticated emails with Thunderbird, while organizations including online banks and web stores can use the system to authenticate users through smartcards in combination with Firefox.

The Certificate System follows the launch of Red Hat's directory server in June. Both applications are based on the iPlanet software that Red Hat acquired from AOL last year.