The World’s First Suite Product with Strong Encryption Provides Corporations with a Complete Security Solution

Espoo, Finland, July 27, 1998 -- Data Fellows, a leading developer of data security solutions, today announced F-Secure Workstation Suite. The product provides a reliable and easy-to-manage solution for most data security concerns of modern corporations.

"F-Secure Workstation Suite provides centralized management of most corporate security aspects," says Mr. Risto Siilasmaa, Chief Executive Officer of Data Fellows. "It combines world-class protection against malicious code with unobtrusive file and network F-Secure Workstation Suite is easily integrated into the enterprise’s management system. The Suite is also totally unobtrusive for the corporate end-users.

"F-Secure Workstation Suite is the only product to combine world-class anti-virus protection with strong encryption for network traffic and files stored on the hard disk. Competing offerings from Network Associates and Symantec are not available world-wide with strong encryption. They also lack the centralized policy based management features announced for F-Secure Workstation Suite 4.0.

Unparalleled Virus Protection

The components of F-Secure Workstation Suite utilize the absolute latest technology in the field. Malicious code detection and removal is based on the F-Secure Anti-Virus product line, the first anti-virus in the world to use multiple scanning engines simultaneously through its revolutionary CounterSign architecture. Its detection rates are unparalleled, and automated updates to the whole network further enhance its reliability.

Real-Time File Encryption and IPsec-Based Network Encryption

F-Secure Workstation Suite is the only suite product currently available to offer strong encryption all over the world. The product uses an encryption key length of 128 bits or more. The administrator can choose from supported algorithms, including RSA, 3DES and Blowfish. All the most widely used authentication methods are supported.

Should the authorized user forget his/her password, the product also contains a safe and easy administrative key retrieval function.

"The file encryption component of F-Secure Workstation Suite provides real-time protection for confidential data. F-Secure FileCrypto automatically encrypts all open and temporary files. Not only is encryption completely unobtrusive to the end-user, but it is also extremely secure: there is no way the user can accidentally store confidential information in plain text," explains Mr. Siilasmaa.

F-Secure Workstation Suite’s network encryption, F-Secure VPN+, is based on the latest IPsec standards. The F-Secure VPN+ is fully scalable: it contains three components (Client, Server and Gateway) which can be combined to build all major types of virtual private networks. These include connections between organizations and their partners, home offices, or employees on the road. F-Secure VPN+ is also fully transparent to the end-user, as it uses IP protocol at the network level, which is invisible at the application level. The F-Secure Workstation Suite product contains the client component of F-Secure VPN+. The Server and Gateway components are available separately.

Availability

The first version of F-Secure Workstation Suite will operate in the Microsoft Windows NT environment. The product will be available from the Data Fellows resellers around the world in August 1998. Prices will start from $68 per seat for a 100-user license.

The 4.0 version will be available in early fourth quarter 1998. This version will be a fully integrated, policy-based security solution, making it possible to manage data security issues in accordance with the corporate security policy. The product will be based on a three tier management architecture with considerable scalability advantages in a large organization. In addition to Microsoft Windows NT, it will also operate in the Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 environments.

All users of F-Secure Workstation Suite 3.0 will receive a free upgrade to the 4.0 version as it ships.

Easy-to-Use Management and Scalability

The installation of F-Secure Workstation Suite 4.0 requires no work at the actual workstation, and no configuration from the end-user after the installation. The entire corporate system can be managed centrally. Thus the management of vital security issues is effective but completely transparent to the end-user. F-Secure Workstation Suite supports the industry-standard SNMP protocol, integrates with Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) and will include agents for leading enterprise management products, such as CA Unicenter, IBM Tivoli and HP OpenView.

F-Secure Workstation Suite 4.0 comes bundled with F-Secure Administrator, a Pure Java based graphical console for managing the security policies for the whole enterprise network.