October 1, 1999 Web posted at: 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT) by Mary Lisbeth D'Amico

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MUNICH (IDG) -- Intershop Communications' e-commerce software will soon have a new security twist. Instead of making users sign onto protected sites with a password, the new technology will verify their identity by their fingerprints.

The new security technology, called Goldfinger, is the result of the German software vendor's partnership with Berlin-based Brain Trust Marketing. The product is designed to provide security for closed-user networks, mainly for business-to-business e-commerce applications, said Herwig Ehrenberger, a Brain Trust spokesman.

Goldfinger will be available in the fourth quarter in Europe and later will be marketed globally, according to Ehrenberger.

A biometric scanner connected to a computer, scans a user's fingerprint and compares it to an original scanned-in image of an authorized user's fingerprint. The person gains access to the online shop only if this match-up is accurate.

Desktop users of the system receive a software plug-in that enables the client computer to send the fingerprint data to a central server, where the original fingerprint information is stored and evaluated. Brain Trust also installs and operates a server network for such systems.

Goldfinger for Intershop will be available to anyone with the merchant or hosting edition of Intershop 4, the e-commerce vendor's most recent software version.

BrainTrust plans to show Goldfinger for Intershop at Internet World and the Intershop Open users conference, both of which are being held in New York during the first week of October.

Mary Lisbeth D'Amico is Munich correspondent for the IDG News Service.