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Abstract

The Australian Access Federation (AAF) provides a framework to facilitate trusted electronic communications and collaboration within and between institutions of higher education and research in Australia, and between these institutions and other organisations worldwide.

Similar federations are emerging in the international community as institutions around the world seek a common approach for managing and sharing resources. A key driver of AAF is to reduce the risk of accidental or malicious exposure of data and other resources in a collaborative environment.

The use of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology in the AAF will assist in minimising the exposure to accidental or malicious use of collaborative resources.

This presentation will provide an overview of the Australian Access Federation (AAF) and will discuss how PKI is used to support the collaborative environment.

About the speaker

Viviani Paz is the Security Assurance Manager for AusCERT (The Australian National Computer Emergency Response Team) based at The University of Queensland. Prior to joining AusCERT in 1995, Viviani worked in a range of IT areas including: system and network security; system programming and administration; and software testing and verification in the Commercial and Academic sectors for over a decade. Viviani is the Policy Designer and Project Manager for the eSecurity Framework Project, in which a PKI environment is being developed to assist Australian Universities’ collaboration and interoperation. She is also the Project Manager for the Australian Access Federation Project (AAF). The AAF project will develop the federation policy framework and deploy the infrastructure required to enable access to online resources and services for the Australian higher education and research sector. The infrastructure deployed is based on two technologies: Shibboleth and Public Key Infrastructure.