Based on internet technology, intranets are becoming an essential part of corporate information systems today. However, internets were not originally designed with businesses in mind. It lacks the technology required for secure business transactions and communications. A challenge therefore arises for businesses with intranet, i.e. how to establish and maintain trust in an environment, which was originally designed for open access to information. More specifically, a way has to be found to secure an intranet without impinging on its inherent benefits of flexibility, interoperability and ease of use. In order to accommodate new, changing and expanding groups of users and provide these users with information in a number of ways, intranets should deliver several benefits, including flexibility, interoperability, ease of use and extendibility. In particular, they should be open and and standards based, so information can be read by different users with different applications on different platforms.