With the latest software release for its CryptoServer LAN appliances, Utimaco Safeware AG is the first manufacturer of Hardware Security Modules to also launch native IPv6 support. Thus, Utimaco is paving the way for its customers to standardize their company-wide IT infrastructure to IPv6 and, as a result, helping them to lower their costs for IT.
According to RIPE NCC, the contingent for outdated IPv4 addresses has been exhausted since September 2012. Since then, the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, responsible for IP addresses, has only been issuing IPv6 addresses. Highly innovative and high-tech companies, which leverage machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, are therefore already using the new IPv6 addresses en masse today. This also includes smart meters, which are in wide use throughout the USA and that employ an own IP address. In fact, the market-leading provider of smart metering solutions puts its trust in Utimaco HSMs-banking on these reliable devices to provide a true chain reaction of security.
Experts are also forecasting growth of smart meters as well as other M2M-capable devices for the European market in the billions up to the year 2015 alone. Due to the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, high-tech companies in this sector are being forced to switch their IT systems to accommodate the new Internet Protocol. To keep the enormously high costs associated with such a comprehensive introduction to an absolute minimum, a high degree of standardization is necessary for the entire IT system. And, indeed, for all devices: for those which communicate through the Internet with IPv6 as well as those which communicate through the corporate network with internally issued IP addresses.
To ideally serve the M2M market, and particularly the smart meter market, the Germany-based HSM provider is planning a huge product launch this fall. "We are on the verge of launching another CryptoServer range designed to accommodate the masses of transactions at the highest security level. We will continue to serve the smart meter sector and more, but now also include card applications for eID or eHealth," sadi Andreas Philipp, Head of Sales CryptoServer.
