SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 12, 1994 -- Cisco Systems and Cylink haveannounced a joint partnership to develop a family of LAN and WAN securityproducts. The first product, router-based packet encryption software, willbe available in mid-1995.

The two companies will integrate Cylink's Enterprise SecurityArchitecture into Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS), resulting inthe development of hardware and software security modules that will enableCisco's family of internetworking platforms to control data access andensure information integrity and privacy.

Security Concerns on the Rise

"While governments, banks and other institutions that deal withsensitive or confidential information have always been concerned with datasecurity, these concerns are growing more widespread as electronic commerceover internetworks become commonplace," said Christine Hemrick, Cisco'sdirector of IOS product marketing. "Today users must either rely on thelimited security capabilities of network operating systems and applicationsoftware or buy hardware systems that secure only point-to-point networks."

"Cylink's secure packet architecture will allow Cisco to offer itsusers a flexible security solution that cuts across many networkenvironments," said Bill Lattin, Cylink vice president. "The partnershipwill bring an open, highly scalable, transparent and cost-effective LANsecurity architecture to Cisco's wide range of internetworking solutions,providing users with enterprise-wide security."

Media-Independent, End-to-End Security

Cisco and Cylink will develop a single-site security process that willreside between any two destinations, regardless of the internetwork's sizeor the number of LAN/WAN links. The software will be media-independent,operating over Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, X.25, SMDS, point-to-point,Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks. Customers willbe able to select either basic cost-efficient software orhigher-performance integrated hardware options.

Initial products, scheduled for mid-1995 availability, are designed toprovide information access, authentication, integrity and privacy. Theywill include both hardware and software that runs on Cisco's family ofinternetworking platforms.

Cylink SecurePacket products will operate seamlessly with Ciscoproducts that incorporate Cylink's Enterprise Security Architecture.

"Cylink is an ideal partner for us in this major venture," Hemricksaid. "There is tremendous synergy between Cisco's understanding oflarge-scale internetworks with many LAN/WAN links and Cylink's decade-longrecord of designing plug-and-play security algorithms, high-performancesilicon and public key-management technology."

Cylink Corporation provides internetworking leadership through itsinnovative, state-of-the-art network security and advanced spread spectrumradio technologies. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Cylink servesFortune 500 companies, multinational financial institutions and manyinternational government agencies.

Cisco Systems, Inc. is the leading global supplier of enterprise networks, including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-up accessservers and network management software. These products, integrated by Cisco'sInternetwork Operating System (IOS) link geographically dispersed LANs,WANs and IBM networks. Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, California andin the U.S., is traded under the NASDAQ symbol CSCO.