Vasco announces Diginotar bankruptcy

NETHERLANDS BASED Vasco has announced that its subsidiary Diginotar is bankrupt.

This month a breach at Diginotar lead to a hacker releasing digital certificates belonging to the firm, a particularly embarrassing situation.

"Although we are saddened by this action and the circumstances that necessitated it. We would like to remind our customers and investors that the incident at DigiNotar has no impact on VASCO's core authentication technology," said T. Kendall Hunt, Vasco's chairman and CEO as he announced that the firm is shuffling away from the Diginotar business and shedding itself of the weak security it apparently offered.

"The technological infrastructures of VASCO and DigiNotar remain completely separated, meaning that there is no risk for infection of VASCO's strong authentication business."

Hunt added that the company would work "to the fullest extent reasonably practicable" to bring the Diginotar business to an orderly close for its staff and its customers. "In addition, we plan to cooperate with the Trustee and the Judge to to bring the affairs of DigiNotar to an appropriate conclusion for its employees and customers," he explained.

"We also plan to cooperate with the Dutch government in its investigation of the person or persons responsible for the attack on DigiNotar."

Also taking pains to distance the security failing Diginotar from its main business, which is two factor authentication, was Jan Valcke, Vasco's president and COO.

"We want to emphasise that the bankruptcy filing by DigiNotar, which was primarily a certificate authority, does not involve VASCO's core two-factor authentication business," he said.

"While we do not plan to re-enter the certificate authority business in the near future, we expect that we will be able to integrate the PKI/identity verification technology acquired from DigiNotar into our core authentication platform. As a result, we expect to be able to offer a stronger authentication product line in the coming year to our traditional customers." µ