It’s no surprise that open source support is important to a business with the name Opengear (News - Alert). The company, which designs and manufactures smart appliances for secure remote infrastructure management, has always embraced open source software and particularly OpenSSL. Now Opengear has made a major commitment to the movement, becoming a sponsor of the OpenSSL Project as part of their work with the OpenSSL Software Foundation.
The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort, and Opengear is joined by sponsors like Nokia (News - Alert) and Qualys in supporting the initiative. The goal of the project is to develop a commercial-grade open source toolkit implementing SSL and TLS protocols along with a general purpose cryptography library. The library would be managed by a global community of volunteers that would work on developing the OpenSSL toolkit and documentation.
Opengear executive chairman Bob Waldie recently wrote a blog entry about the company’s participation in the project and why it has decided to support the OpenSSL movement. He referenced the recent outbreak of the HeartBleed bug, a vulnerability in the OpenSSL software library that enables information normally protected by SSL/TLS encryption to be stolen, as a catalyst for action.
“HeartBleed was not good, but open source software (just like commercial software) will have bugs – it’s a fact of life,” wrote Waldie. “OpenSSL will probably have other issues as it continues to mature, and that’s OK – we just want to make sure the OpenSSL Foundation continues on (and, ideally, gets the respect and funding it deserves). But, the good news: in the wake of the vulnerability, other companies are getting on board, and we think that’s great (and, really, about time).”
He also mentioned that Opengear has been instrumental in moving OpenSSL from the world of servers and desktop PCs to embedded devices. The company sponsored the first OpenSSL FIPS validation on non-Intel (News - Alert) processors more than four years ago, which has resulted in widespread implementation over scores of embedded devices, including competitors’ products.
Opengear, which celebrated its tenth anniversary on May 19, also announced plans this week to release a new remote management gateway that will ship in June. The ACM5508-2-L-I is part of the ACM5500 product family and offers eight serial console ports as well as advanced cellular connectivity like 4G LTE (News - Alert) compatibility. By enabling both cellular and wired access to remote infrastructure, the solution lets IT managers stay on top of their critical networks at local and remote sites.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson