News

Solution Critical to Creating a Secure Internet Infrastructure for VoIP, Streaming Video, High Volume E-Commerce, and Corporate Internetworking

SSH Communications Security (SSH), the world-leading developer of Internet security and developer of the Secure Shell standard, and Celotek Corporation, a leader in high- performance security solutions, today announced a strategic licensing agreement to integrate the SSH IPSEC Express™ Toolkit into Celotek's new 4.8 Gbps IPSec technology, creating a chipset that is a fully functional, scaleable IPSec system that performs packet processing, encryption and authentication, and complete IKE (Internet Key Exchange) protocol processing.

"The demand for security at all levels of networking has created a need for an IPSec-based product that can encrypt at very high speeds and in high-volume networking traffic environments, such as videoconferencing and ASP applications," said George Adams, president and CEO of SSH, Inc. "By integrating our highly interoperable Internet security technology with their high-speed encryption solution, Celotek is delivering a product that directly addresses business customers' needs for a world-class security system to protect their mission-critical information."

As part of this strategic relationship, Celotek's packet processing and cryptographic processors operate directly on packet flows without any software intervention. The processors also support SSH's APIs (Application Program Interface) for accelerating cryptographic functions needed for IKE tunnel establishment. Celotek will use SSH's IPSec processing engine for restricting access to the control port of the system and SSH's management interface for network management reporting.

This development will enable users of the SSH IPSEC Express Toolkit to directly incorporate Celotek's technology with little system implementation work. Alternatively, Celotek will distribute reference designs to its customers incorporating a SSH IPSec stack integrated with Celotek's packet/security database, cryptographic processing core, and associated support software. Together, SSH software and Celotek technology will support the most popular security algorithms including DES (Data Encryption Standard) and Triple DES for symmetric encryption, SHA-1 and MD-5 for keyed hash authentication, and Diffie-Hellman, DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm), and other popular public key algorithms operations.

"Celotek's industry-leading system design and SSH's experience in IKE protocol implementation will allow networking device manufacturers to easily integrate a complete IPSec system solution that scales for high-capacity aggregation switches or high-speed link applications," said Jim Kristof, director, software architecture for Celotek and co-architect of the system. "Together we successfully address the issues of interoperability, scaleability, latency, manageability, tunnel establishment performance and rapid integration that are missing from other vendors' offerings. Our solution is a cost-effective VPN in a chipset for vendors who build aggregation devices for the service provider, DSLAM, VoIP, Gigabit Ethernet and other network device markets."

About IPSec and SSH IPSEC Express

IPSec is an IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standard for protecting IP traffic using cryptography on the packet level. This Internet protocol is the predominant security technology used in VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). A driving force for IPSec, VPNs allow users to establish secure data communications between multiple networks or network devices using insecure public networks such as the Internet. SSH's IPSec technology adds scaleable, strong security to IP networks, without limiting its flexibility to enable new types of business opportunities, such as secure local and global communications between companies e-commerce and e-banking. SSH IPSEC Express is the world's leading toolkit for IPSec.

About Celotek Corporation

Celotek is a global leader in high-performance security solutions. CellCase™ cryptographic systems set the standard for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network security, providing transparent Triple DES encryption at speeds ranging from 1.5 Mbps to 622 Mbps. The development of OC-48 IPSec VPN technology extends Celotek's leadership in high-performance network security. More information about the company and its products can be found at www.celotek.com. Celotek is headquartered in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina.

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