News Release

Cisco Introduces Windows-NT Firewall Product

Easy-to-Use Cisco Centri Firewall Targets Small/Medium Businesses
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Aug 26, 1997



SAN JOSE, Calif. -- August 26, 1997 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. todayannounced the Centri Firewall, a security solution for smalland medium-sized businesses. The Windows NT-based Centri Firewall version 4.0 -- designed to provide anaffordable, secure connection to the Internet and protectorganizations from increased security risks -- is easy to useand administer.

"Cisco is committed to enabling small to medium businessesto take advantage of the full business potential of the Internet,"said Christine Hemrick, vice president and general manager ofthe Internet Appliances and Applications Business Unit at CiscoSystems. "By offering the Windows NT-based Centri Firewall,Cisco is providing a powerful, yet easy-to-use security element."

The Centri Firewall provides security witha user-friendly graphical user interface and can be setup and administered without an onsite security expert. An InstallationWizard walks the network administrator through the installationand initial setup within 20 minutes.

The Centri Firewall includes the Natural Network Viewer andPolicy Builder features that simplify security policy settingby allowing security policies to be applied to NT domains, users,groups, individual machines, or to groups of machines residingin defined physical or logical networks. It also comes with preconfiguredsupport for popular network applications and services, includingtransparent support for all common TCP/IP applications, such asWWW, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet and Mail. In additionto these out-of-box services, the Centri Firewall allows safeand easy customized support for any network application or service,such as Web, electronic mail and DNS servers. These applicationsand services can reside on the same Windows NT system, allowinga small or medium-sized business to reduce the cost of securelyconnecting to the Internet.

The Centri Firewall is based on the unique Kernel Proxy architecturethat provides strong security and high performance by interceptingnetwork traffic at the kernel level of the Windows NT operatingsystem. This capability protects the firewall from vulnerabilities.

Additional standard features include ActiveX, Java applet, JavaScript,VBscript and URL blocking; port address translation; network addresstranslation; proxy security services for Web, Telnet, and FTP;and support for multimedia applications including RealAudio, NetMeeting,CoolTalk, H.323 and VDOLive.

The Cisco Centri Firewall extends Cisco's firewall product line,which currently includes the Cisco PIX Firewall, a leadingenterprise security solution. In the future, features of theeasy-to-use Centri graphical user interface will be incorporatedacross the Cisco firewall product line.

Pricing and Availability

The Cisco Centri Firewall will be available September 1, 1997,through Cisco Connection Online (CCO), distributors and VARs. The Centri Firewall is sold based on the number of network users. Three user levels are available: 100, 250 and unrestricted users.For a 100-user solution, the price is $3,495; for 250 users,the price is $4,995; and for an unrestricted number of users,the price is $7,495. The unrestricted license for the CentriFirewall is recommended for sites with up to 500 users; it isnot an unlimited user license. A localized version for the Japanesemarket will be available in the fourth quarter of 1997.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networkingfor the Internet. at http://www.cisco.com.

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Centri, Cisco IOS, Kernel Proxy, Natural NetworkViewer, PIX and Policy Builder are trademarks, and Cisco, CiscoSystems and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks ofCisco Systems, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks, mentioned in this document are the propertyof their respective owners.