RSA First With Optimized Security For Next-Generation Intel Platforms

BSAFE Crypto-C Achieves Unprecedented Performance and Flexibility

BEDFORD, Mass., September, 20, 2000 -- RSA Security, Inc. (NASDAQ: RSAS), the most trusted name in e-security, today released the latest version of BSAFE Crypto-C, the first security development kit with cryptographic algorithms specifically optimized for the Intel Pentium 4 and IA-64 "Itanium" processors -- up to 1000 RSA operations per second -- letting developers take full advantage of the power of these processors to boost the speed of most e-commerce transactions. Already the industry's most widely used cryptographic software, BSAFE Crypto-C 5.1 continues this legacy into the new century by delivering performance improvements and flexible hardware support designed to bring unprecedented speed and throughput to secure applications across a wide range of hardware platforms.

In addition to working closely with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) to achieve optimizations, RSA has now incorporated Compaq Corporation's (NYSE: CPQ) patented MultiPrime technology in RSA BSAFE Crypto-C. Using multiple prime numbers and parallelism, MultiPrime technology enables RSA BSAFE Crypto-C to perform encryption/decryption tasks more than twice as fast as previous methods, particularly important when conducting SSL-protected Internet transactions and non-repudiation operations, especially those involving resource-limited wireless devices. RSA BSAFE Crypto-C now also provides full PKCS#11 support, making it easy for secure applications to communicate with a variety of hardware devices such as smart cards for secure secret key storage and cryptographic accelerators for further performance improvement. Through RSA's close partnership with HP, RSA BSAFE-Crypto-C also provides additional optimizations for applications running on the HP-UX operating system with Intel P4 or IA-64 processors.

"Our close partnerships with Intel, HP and Compaq have been instrumental in enabling us to deliver the best performing, most flexible cryptographic development kit we have ever produced.," said Scott Schnell, senior vice president f marketing for RSA Security. "As our flagship security component, we are particularly proud of the continuing BSAFE Crypto-C enhancements we have been able to achieve for our customers, enabling them to create even better secure applications more quickly and easily than ever before."

"RSA has taken the lead in providing developers with a way to achieve the highest performance on the Pentium 4 and IA-64 for their secure e-business applications," said someone at Intel. "These platforms were designed to help organizations succeed in the fast-changing e-business environment, and RSA's optimized security components go a long way toward support this goal."

"Today's announcement is an other example of how our close working relationship with RSA helps customers be more successful in achieving their e-business goals," said someone at HP. "We look forward to continuing our partnership and exploring new ways to create even more value for our customers."

"We are thrilled to see our unique MultiPrime security acceleration technology become an essential ingredient in the world's most popular security component," said Bill Heil, vice president and general manager of Compaq’s Business Critical Server Division. "We look forward to our continuing relationship, and to delivering more exciting security products."

RSA BSAFE Crypto-C is the most comprehensive solution for software developers wanting to add state-of-the-art encryption, data integrity and authentication features to their applications, and provides software developers with multiple algorithms and modules for adding encryption and authentication features to applications. Time-tested and trusted in nearly 1 billion security applications, RSA BSAFE software includes modules for popular security encryption techniques, such as RSA™, DES, RC2®, RC4®, RC5™ and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), and also supports digital signatures and certificates.

BSAFE Crypto-C simplifies programming, making it easy for developers to build expert security into wide range of applications -- including digitally signed forms; private Internet communications; signed, tamperproof applications; secure wireless communications and virtual private networks -- without having to be a security expert or have any background in cryptography, mathematics or number theory. It also enables developers to avoid the risk of costly and embarrassing software recalls that often result from failed home-grown security techniques. BSAFE Crypto-C’s component architecture makes it fast and easy to integrate and able to adapt to future security standards and technologies. Intel's IA-64 architecture incorporates unique features to provide breakthrough performance on RSA algorithms in SSL authentication. These features include massive resources for security performance: many functional units, a large number of registers and a fully pipelined integer multiply-add.

Availability and Pricing

RSA BSAFE Crypto-C 5.1 is priced at $295, and is available now for HP-UX, Windows 95, 98, 2000 and NT, Sun/Solaris and Linux. Ports for over 30 other platforms, as well as assembly and custom algorithm optimizations, are also available.

RSA Security Inc.

RSA Security Inc., The Most Trusted Name in e-Security™, helps organizations build secure, trusted foundations for e-business through its RSA SecurID® two-factor authentication, RSA BSAFE® encryption and RSA Keon® public key management systems. With more than a half billion RSA BSAFE-enabled applications in use worldwide, more than six million RSA SecurID users and almost 20 years of industry experience, RSA Security has the proven leadership and innovative technology to address the changing security needs of e-business and bring trust to the new, online economy. RSA Security can be reached at www.rsasecurity.com.

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BSAFE and SecurID are registered trademarks, and Keon, RSA and The Most Trusted Name in e-Security are trademarks of RSA Security Inc. All other products and services mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.