Vol.2 No.1 (March, 2007)

Special Issue: Information Security in Enterprises

MURAYAMA Yoshikazu
Senior Vice President

OKADA Takayuki
Associate Senior Vice President

In the new trend as exemplified by Web2.0, high reliability and high security is required more than ever for large-scale/complex business systems. Meanwhile, security threats are evolving at breakneck speed, making it necessary to have a system that allows any unexpected security threat to be countered much quicker than before to minimize the spread of that threat.
This special issue is aimed at introducing NEC's security technologies, products and solutions that address this problem. And this article serves to introduce summaries as well as the positioning of the various articles contained in this special issue.
In the category of key technologies we will introduce our latest technologies and products focusing on NEC's "Cooperative Security" architecture and our newest InfoCage series products. And in the category of solutions and case studies, we will talk about actual customer case studies as well as the information leakage countermeasures and strategies we have adopted at NEC.

Key Technologies

NORIFUSA Masaya, GOTO Jun, MORINO Junichi
YANOO Kazuo, SAKAKI Hiroshi, TERASAKI Hiroshi

Just as broadband networking, high-performance and light-weight laptops and useful applications have significantly improved enterprise IT environments, the targets and complexities of security management have also tended to increase significantly. Actions against security problems are now required to be performed in no delay. The resulting movement of information and its carrying devices have produced many security issues that cannot be dealt with by a single, static security countermesure. In order to deal effectively with this situation, this paper proposes the notion of "cooperative security." Cooperative security allows security countermeasure utilities with different target domains to be mutually linked, thus achieving double or triple security management of the information and its carrying devices as well as maintaining a high security level for the enterprise. The new InfoCage series is a suite of utilities for implementing such management policies. It is also planned that "cooperative security" will be extended to the partner vendor products in order to enhance security linkages to the applications of other business fields such as paper documents and floorentrance/exit management systems, etc.

YASUTOME Yoshio, ADACHI Tomoo, YOSHIDA Takayuki

The importance of the quarantine network is being acknowledged more than ever as one of the means of implementing the observance of effective security policies, which is one of the important issues of internal governance. Since multiple quarantine methods already exist, selection of an optimum method is an important factor in system introductions. This paper describes quarantine functions trends, the characteristics of various quarantine methods and issues relevant to the introduction of quarantine systems. It also introduces efforts that are being made by NEC in this field.

TANAKA Nobuyoshi, KUWATA Masahiko

Enterprises have previously managed user information separately for each information system. As a result, they are currently encountering the need to integrate their ID information on the basis of strict management of access to information systems and confidential information. This policy is required in order to solve the problems inherited from the previous management systems, as well as to enhance the internal governance that is required by both the social circumstances and the legal regulations. Based on experiences in the introduction of a variety of integrated ID management systems both inside and outside of NEC, we are ready to contribute to the efficient preparation of corporate integrated ID management systems with our consultation services and utilities such as SECUREMASTER. With the future in mind, NEC is planning to provide a whole range of integrated ID management infrastructures that can help enterprises create added value by mutually combining existing values of their own and achieve integrated services that feature a large variety of combinations.

SHIMAZU Hideo

In daily business work site, a huge amount of electronic documents are produced, stored in server computers or personal computers, and distributed. These documents contain a large number of highly confidential information. Unfortunately, these documents are not managed safely enough so that the risk of a possible leakage of confidential information has been tending to increase.
This paper introduces 'Content security' which has the architecture of "an electronic document protects itself by itself." By introducing the concept of content security, the information protection architecture designed to prevent information leakage of electronic documents will be enhanced.

HAYANO Shin-ichiro, TANIKAWA Tadashi, KITAKAZE Jiro

In response to the increasing risk of information leakage, this paper proposes a new direction, incorporating the concept of area security management. In the past, management for people, goods, PCs, networks and information content was implemented individually, however, if all management was coordinated based on "integrated ID management," it would be possible to manage "when," "by whom," and "what is done to" information. For example, by limiting the locations where information is accessed, coordinating PCs and entrance/exit controls, taking logs and processing videos, efficient management with greater security can be achievable.

Case Studies:An Information Leakage Prevention System

TAMURA Takashi, KANDA Masahiko

NEC is currently developing an information leakage prevention system (ARGUS: NEC Information Audit-trail & Guard System) that uses the new InfoCage series utilities as its core. The purpose of this system is to prevent information leakage incidents or to minimize their damages if they occur. These aims are achieved by using IT to permanently manage information flow, even when information is handled outside of the corporate office or by a third party in the office.
Hitherto, the only means of prevention in such cases was to rely on the rules and ethical policies of the outside firms and their employees. ARGUS has already been introduced since the latter half of FY2006 in some NEC departments on a preliminary basis and its full scale domestic introduction throughout the NEC Group is scheduled for FY2007.

Special Issue: Nanotechnology

BABA Toshio

Paving the way for an Information Society of unprecedented convenience and comfort, NEC has been tackling the development of nanotechnology since the late eighties as the key to innovative technologies that will unlock advanced information technologies and network system infrastructure. This special issue will introduce NEC's proprietary fundamental technologies and examples of our groundbreaking nanodevice technologies as well as our development strategy which is applying the unique physical phenomena of nanostructures to innovative nanodevices, our leveraging of open innovation through collaboration with third parties, and our global edge in nanomaterials, nanofabrication and nano-evaluation and new nano-simulation technologies.

Key Nanotechnologies

IIJIMA Sumio, YUDASAKA Masako, NIHEY Fumiyuki

The carbon nanotube (CNT) is a representative nano-material discovered in 1991 at NEC. With its unique structure, high strength, high electric conductivity and high thermal conductivity, CNT is expected to be applied widely together with its variant the carbon nanohorn (CNH) in electronic devices such as transistors and fuel cells as well as in the environmental and biotechnological fields. This paper introduces the characteristics and features of CNT and CNH and describes some of their application fields.

ISHIDA Masahiko, FUJITA Junichi, NARIHIRO Mitsuru,
ICHIHASHI Toshinari, NIHEY Fumiyuki, OCHIAI Yukinori

The world of nanotechnology is plagued by its size limitations and frontiers beyond which fabrication or observation are impossible. Engineering and characterization technologies at the nano-scale are critical technologies for breaking through these limitations and frontiers and for obtaining significant advantages.
NEC has developed and commercialized calixarene, an ultra high-resolution resist technology for electron-ray exposure that enables nanofabrication at the 10nm level, and has applied it in the development of nanodevices. Also developed is the technology for preparing metallic nanoparticles at the 1nm level, which is even smaller than the resolution for calixarene. This technology has been applied in the control of the properties of the carbon nanotube (CNT). NEC has also succeeded in observing the process of CNT growth by combining the 3D nanofabrication technology with that of transmission electron microscopy, which is an excellent nano-characterization technology.

MIYAMOTO Yoshiyuki, TAKAHARA Hiroshi

This paper presents NEC's developments in simulation technologies for nano-scale phenomena based on the principles of quantum mechanics and High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies. The procedure using the Schrödinger equation to obtain real physical quantities is briefl y introduced, and applications of nano-scale simulations to explore catalysis and nano-carbon are presented. The necessity of using HPC in large-scale simulations is also discussed.

Electronics / Photonics

NISHI Kenichi, URINO Yutaka, OHASHI Keishi

“Si nanophotonics” controls light by employing a nano-scale structural technology. Featuring state-of-the-art technologies to manufacture LSI chips, Si nanophotonics technology enables impressive miniaturization and achieves low power consumption compared to the conventional optical elements technologies. Optical signal transmission of the LSI chip has not hitherto been realized, however by adopting this Si nanophotonics technology to the elements of an LSI, NEC demonstrated the possibility to significantly improve LSI performance. With this technology NEC is proposing to create new devices to support next generation networks and LSI innovations.

SAKAMOTO Toshitsugu, KAERIYAMA Shunichi, MIZUNO Masayuki,
TERABE Kazuya, HASEGAWA Tsuyoshi, AONO Masakazu

We have investigated a NanoBridge technology for a high performance LSI that is reconfigurable. The NanoBridge comprises a solid electrolyte sandwiched between two metals. The switch has two conducting states (ON/OFF) that persist in the absence of a power supply. The distinctive advantages of this switch are its small size (<30nm) and low ON resistance (<100Ω). This paper proposes a three-terminal NanoBridge, for which the control gate is separate from the current path. This innovative switch resolves the issues arising from large current during switching that occurs in a two-terminal NanoBridge.

Functional Elements

NAKADA Masafumi, KAWAKAMI Toshihiro, IWANAMI Mizuki, OHASHI Keishi

Oxide materials have superior functional characteristics that are attributed to their versatile structures and chemically stable characteristics. These characteristics are expected to enable their employment as the functional device materials that are required to support the ubiquitous society. The aerosol deposition method is a nanocrystalline film forming method that employs the impact solidification phenomenon of ultra fine particles. This method enables the formation of oxide films onto any type of substrate. NEC and NEC TOKIN are co-developing piezoelectric and optical device products to be used in the aerosol deposition.

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