Canadian encryption experts to guard secret U.S. data CPUNK

[Anonymous <nobody@neuropa.net>]

Canadian encryption experts to guard secret U.S. data 
By Reuters
Special to CNET News.com
June 21, 2000, 2:15 p.m. PT 

TORONTO--Canada's Kasten Chase has been given the exclusive go-ahead by the 
U.S. National Security Agency to safeguard top-secret government data, which 
could make the recent theft of computer hard drives laden with nuclear 
secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory a nonissue in the future.

Toronto-based Kasten Chase became the first company to be endorsed by the 
security agency to encrypt the hard drives, not just the data, the company 
said today. 

        "If those (Los Alamos) devices had our media encrypter, when they 
were switched on by anybody that had stolen them, they would have been 
absolutely useless," Kasten's chief executive Paul Hyde told Reuters in a 
telephone interview. 

The only thing preventing the breach of a hard drive today is the operating 
system's initial passwords, said Hyde. 

"With our system, you could rip that thing to shreds and you couldn't get to 
it. There is no way that data would be accessible," he added. 

Kasten Chase's RASP Secure Media system is "necessary and sufficient" to 
encrypt military, police and intelligence agencies' mission-critical 
information to the "classified secret" level, said Michael Flemming, chief of 
the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Solutions Group. 

"We are pleased to certify the RASP Secure Media product as meeting our 
requirements for encrypting information on computer storage media," Flemming 
sai in a statement. 

Kasten already has a product in use by about 90 government agencies, since 
certification in June 1999, that allows remote users to access classified 
data, said Hyde. 

Also, Kasten said today that it would integrate its products with Alcatel's 
Virtual Private Network, a secure corporate or government intranet that works 
through the Internet. 

Story Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.