<p>The primary objective of open source software company Zarafa has been to develop a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Exchange. But simply replicating groupware functionality is not enough to achieve that goal Zarafa also needs to create enterprise-class security solutions for its products. And that's exactly what the company has done with the recent release of a hardware-based two-factor authentication scheme that sets an important precedent in the open source channel. Here are the details.</p><p>As regular readers of The VAR Guy know, Zarafa has made a number of major announcements in recent months. It has forged new partnerships and enhanced the feature set of its open source groupware suite, which it touts as a complete replacement for Exchange.Focus on Security</p><p>But to become maximally competitive with a well-entrenched platform that is Exchange, Zarafa needs to offer the enterprise-level security assurance that many potential customers require to guarantee the privacy of data and regulatory compliance. Toward that end, Zarafa announced a partnership with Yubico to deliver two-factor authentication to protect access to Zarafa webmail.</p><p>The solution relies on Yubico's YubiKey product, a pendrive-sized device that emits a unique signal intercepted by the computer as keyboard input. The Zarafa webmail interface can be configured to require the signal in addition to a standard username and password to grant access to email.</p><p><a href="http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/10/02/zarafa-yubicon-partner-on-open-source-security/">Keep reading...</a></p>