Speeds up to 70 Mbits/second with a software VPN using strong encryption

Helsinki, Finland, April 13, 1999 - Data Fellows, the global leader in developing data security software solutions, announces that F-Secure VPN+ 4.0, its new Virtual Private Networking software product, implements strong encryption as fast or faster as many hardware solutions on standard Intel-based Pentium computers.

F- Secure VPN+ secures mission-critical TCP/IP networking on LANs, between remote offices, business partners, and travelling employees. VPN+ 4.0 provides tested interoperability and compliance with the IETF-standard IPSec and IKE protocols.

With F-Secure VPN+ software products, encryption can protect every link in the corporate network chain, including clients, servers, and gateways. Encryption is completely transparent to end users. Only the network administrator has access to the user interface.

F-Secure VPN+ performance was measured by Sonera, the leading Finnish telecommunications provider, using a standard 333MHz Pentium II running Windows NT 4.0. “With a 128-bit Blowfish algorithm, FSecure VPN+ was able to encrypt 24.1 Mbit/s of IP traffic without any packet losses,” says Mr Juha Viinikainen, Development Manager from Sonera Solutions. “With the 3DES algorithm, the performance was over 10 Mbit/s, which is more than enough for most of the cases.”

“The speed of encryption is almost linear with the CPU speed of the machine,” says Mr Topi Hautanen, product manager of F-Secure VPN+ at Data Fellows. “With the newest 500MHz or even 1GHz Intel Pentiums we expect the performance to even triple. A software-based VPN has the advantage of offering more freedom to the customer to extend the VPN all the way from the client to the server. Performance is no longer a bottleneck.”

F- Secure VPN+ 4.0 is available in client, server, and gateway versions which provide flexible configurations and security for all data communications (including LANs). VPN+ supports Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95.

F-Secure VPN+ is centrally managed through F-Secure Administrator, Data Fellows’ policy-based management utility. F- Adminstrator can partition the company network into separate "security zones". The policies may specify common settings for all workstations, servers and gateways in a zone or in the entire network. A policy may also be set for a single computer.

The Data Fellows management architecture can be used to manage Data Fellows’ anti-virus software for workstations and server software, as well as its network and file encryption software. A single policy-based mechanism provides management services to all security products in the company. This both minimizes management effort and costs and maximizes security by integrating different security services into a seamless solution.

For a 100-user license, the price is USD 59 per user. A Server license costs USD 495, a Gateway license costs USD 2495, and an Enterprise Gateway license costs USD 4990.

About Data Fellows

Data Fellows is one of the world’s leading developers of data security products. The Company offers integrated solutions for enterprise security by developing, marketing and supporting anti-virus, data security and cryptography software products for corporate computer networks. Its groundbreaking F-Secure product family is a unique combination of globally available strong encryption and revolutionary anti-virus software. Through F-Secure Framework, the three-tier security and management architecture, the organization’s security policies as well as the F-Secure products can be defined, managed, distributed and updated to an entire organization from one centralized management console. Data Fellows’ anti-virus and cryptography products are ICSA certified.

The Company has customers in more than 100 countries, including many of the world’s largest industrial corporations and best-known telecommunications companies, major international airlines, European governments, post offices and defence forces, and several of the world’s largest banks.

The Company has received numerous awards and citations each year from leading software magazines and publications around the world. They include being selected one of the Top 100 Technology companies in the world by Red Herring magazine in its September 1998 issue and being named Editor’s Choice by PC Magazine.

About Sonera

Sonera Ltd is Finland's leading telecommunications company with subsidiaries and associated companies in 14 countries. Internationally, Sonera is a forerunner in the rapidly growing business areas of mobile, data and media communications. In 1998, Sonera's revenues amounted to USD 1.9 billion, and the operating profit was USD 338 million. The Group employs 8,600 people. Sonera Solutions Ltd is a fully-owned subsidiary of Sonera Ltd.