New Product Provides On-the-Fly Protection For Sensitive Data on Personal Computers

HELSINKI, FINLAND, October 8, 1998 -- Data Fellows, a leading developer of data security software has started to ship F-Secure FileCrypto. The new product provides strong, on-the-fly encryption for confidential data in the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 environment.

"F-Secure FileCrypto is the only file encryption product on the market designed for companies with thousands of PCs," says Mr. Camillo Sars, Product Development Manager, Data Fellows. "The protection of confidential files has never been this easy. F-Secure FileCrypto is installed over the entire network, and automatically encrypts all open and temporary files. The process is completely transparent to end-users, requiring no action from them at all."

The administrator can define a security policy for all installed copies of F-Secure FileCrypto. The recommended basic policy is encrypting all directories on the local hard drive. F-Secure FileCrypto will have a full support for centralized policy-based management later this fall.

The program also features a key retrieval function. If a user forgets the password that allows access to encrypted files, the Administrative Key Recovery function manages the situation safely and easily.

According to Mr. Sars, "F-Secure FileCrypto is one of the the first products to integrate strong real-time encryption into the Windows file system. It automatically encrypts data before it gets stored on the hard disk, protecting sensitive information even in the most demanding situations. If a PC is improperly turned off, or if a laptop computer’s batteries go dead, any open or temporary files will be encrypted and safe.

"F-Secure FileCrypto also has a feature which allows users to send encrypted e-mail to other users. Encrypted e-mail can be decrypted with a password.

F-Secure FileCrypto uses well-known fast block cipher algorithms. Either the three-key 3DES or the Blowfish algorithm can be selected. Both algorithms have been analyzed by the world’s leading cryptographers and are known to be strong and safe.

"Files protected by F-Secure FileCrypto are not accessible to computer freaks, hackers, or even cryptography experts. Each file is encrypted with a random session key. Breaking a single key would give someone access to only one file, and the job would consume trillions of years of computer time," says Mr. Sars.

F-Secure FileCrypto for Windows NT 4.0 is now available from the Data Fellows resellers around the world. Central installation and management features will be implemented in the next release of the product. F-Secure FileCrypto for Windows 95/98 will be available next year.