F-Secure Protects U.S. Government

Helsinki, Finland - April 8, 2003

F-Secure® Inc., maker of award-winning antivirus and encryption software, has amassed 90% of all United States Government agencies as customers of its ‘fortified’ enhancements to SSH. Exhibiting this week at the FOSE Conference in Washington D.C., F-Secure Inc. will be showcasing their FIPS 140 certified encryption solutions within the Homeland Security Pavilion, booth H444.

F-Secure’s government customers include: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Offices of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the US Treasury, US Customs, the U.S Air Force, NASA, the Naval Air Warfare Center, the US Army Medical, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and several other agencies.

Fortified SSH

SSH, or Secured Shell software is one of the first and mostly widely used protocols for encrypting data as it is being sent back and forth over networks and Internet– so that communications cannot be eavesdropped or hacked. Since 1996, F-Secure has been developing and supporting SSH and other data security software products, and is now the largest seller of SSH software in the world.

F-Secure SSH was the first security provider to obtain FIPS 140-1 certification for its cryptographic libraries, and they are committed to adhering to the latest standards of certification, the FIPS 140-2.

Because of its many Government customers, F-Secure has developed unique features and technologies to enhance and support SSH including PKI support, extended testing, and rigorous quality control resulting in fewer vulnerabilities and less maintenance or upgrade time for administrators. These fortifications make F-Secure SSH ideally suited for deployments within Governments and other highly sensitive applications, and are the reasons that the Department of Justice, Treasury, DEA, FBI, and the IRS among many other agencies, chose to deploy F-Secure SSH over other products.

Trustworthy Relationships

F-Secure is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland with offices in Germany, Sweden, Japan and the United Kingdom in addition to regional offices in the United States. As a foreign company, its bids for U.S. government work are highly scrutinized. But F-Secure’s first deployment of it’s acclaimed SSH encryption software within NASA in 1999 was so successful that the reputation of F-Secure SSH as being highly reliable security, quickly spread.

"F-Secure SSH effectively addresses security vulnerabilities associated with managing remote systems," said Leslie Blaine, TLA Associates, consultant for the US Army. "We use F-secure because they are responsive to customer needs and offer a trustworthy, quality product."

“Our investments in resources and continuous efforts to ensure we meet government requirements with the highest quality products has proved a winning concept to gain our customers’ confidence and trust in our products and services,” said Ilkka Starck, Executive Vice President of Americas at F-Secure.

About F-Secure Corporation

F-Secure Corporation is the leading provider of centrally managed security solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company's award-winning products include antivirus, file encryption and network security solutions for major platforms from desktops to servers and from laptops to handhelds. Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been listed on the Helsinki Exchanges [HEX: FSC] since November 1999. The company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, with the North American headquarters in San Jose, California, as well as offices in Germany, Sweden, Japan and the United Kingdom and regional offices in the USA. F-Secure is supported by a network of value added resellers and distributors in over 90 countries around the globe. Through licensing and distribution agreements, the company’s security applications are available for the products of the leading handheld equipment manufacturers, such as Nokia and HP.