Cylink Corp. and its new subsidiary Algorithmic Research have released PrivateWire, a security product for the financial services industry.
PrivateWire, which can be used to protect transactions on a variety of hardware and software platforms, "represents the next generation of remote access security," said Bill Burnham, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray Inc., Minneapolis.
"Cylink hasn't offered user-level authentication before," Mr. Burnham said. "This is its first product toward the end user."
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Cylink is involved in the information security and wireless telecommunications businesses.
The company offers public key cryptography and toils in the shadow of RSA Data Security Inc. of Redwood City, Calif. Cylink's financial customers include the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, Citicorp, Bankers Trust New York Corp., BankAmerica Corp., Barclays Bank in Britain, and Bank of China.
Half of Cylink's $52 million of revenue last year came from financial institutions, said John V. Kalb Jr., Cylink's vice president of strategy and business development.
Algorithmic Research, acquired by Cylink on Sept. 8, has made a name for itself in banking with remote access software and smart card technology for Internet communications.
Algorithmic is continuing to operate from its headquarters in Givat Shmuel, Israel, under the management of co-founders Yossi Tulpan and Amos Fiat.
In France, it is involved in the largest smart card project in the world, securing Canal Plus pay-television transmissions.
Cylink's PrivateWire combines two-way authentication, 1,024-bit encryption, firewalls, smart cards and readers, digital signatures, and certificates. The system costs $19,500 per server, which includes client software for 100 users.
Yossi Cohen, chief operating officer of Algorithmic Research, described the software as a "solution for remote access and virtual private networks. It offers the complete needs for the security of banks."
The software can be used to secure data transmissions in a variety of applications, such as those involving call centers, data warehouses, and E- mail.
"It authenticates the user and establishes one time-key which is used for every session," said Mr. Cohen. "The main goal in designing PrivateWire was to make it totally transparent to the user."
Cylink also is selling complementary products including a personalized smart card, called a Private Card.
In a separate data encryption development, Cylink entered a broad licensing agreement for the Certicom Elliptic Curve Engine, Certicom Corp. announced.
Certicom, a Canadian company with U.S. headquarters in San Mateo, Calif., promotes the elliptic curve system as an alternative to the more- established RSA methods of calculating encryption algorithms. The licensing agreement takes an existing relationship between the companies to a new level, Certicom president Philip Deck said.
"Certicom has led the world in commercializing and standardizing" the elliptic curve cryptosystem "and we look forward to working with them and enhancing our products," said Cylink president and chief executive officer Fernand Sarrat.
