Cylink Corp., a leading supplier of data-security technology, has been awarded a large contract to provide encryption systems to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
The group, also known as Swift, maintains a communications network for its 4,000 financial-institution members around the world for nonstop, rapid, cost-effective, and secure communications.
The Swift network is one of the principal means of exchanging cross-border payment instructions, trade finance, foreign exchange, money markets, and securities trading.
The initial value of the business agreement is estimated at more than $1.75 million, with follow-on purchases expected, Cylink officials said.
Vendor of Choice
After more than two years of discussions, extensive surveys of the data encryption systems on the market, and completion of a formal bidding process, the company was selected as the vendor of choice principally because of Cylink's Security Management System (CSMS), which provides centralized key management for remote encryption devices.
Financial institutions, due to the highly sensitive payment data they transmit, take all available measures to assure the accuracy of these transactions, so they routinely employ encryption systems.
Multinational Clients
Encryption safeguards electronic transmissions from being intercepted or altered by transforming data into a code unintelligible to anyone not possessing complementary decoding equipment.
Cylink Corp., a privately held company founded in 1984 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., is one of the largest vendors in providing comprehensive network-communications security and wireless-connectivity solutions.
Cylink customers include multinational Fortune 500 companies, most major financial institutions in the world, and many commercial and government organizations with multiple distributed facilities, company officials said.
