Cylink Corp launched two sets of products yesterday designed to make transactions and communications over the internet more secure. The company’s PrivateSafe+ and PrivateCard+ smart card reader and card are products it got from its acquisition of Israeli security company Algorithmic Research Ltd last September. Algorithmic is said to have more than 11 million customers for its smart card technology already. It’s based on the Siemens AG SLE 44 processor that performs both the generation of the private key and the signature operation on the chip in isolation from whatever computer environment is being used, which helps prevent the PIN code being left on the computer. The Sunnyvale company also announced the CryptoKit+ set of development tools for application developers and integrators to build public key management functions into their applications. The company says its high-level approach enables almost any developer to add encryption, non-repudiation, authentication and data integrity verification to their applications. The keys can be between 512 and 2048 bits in length. It’s available now on Windows 95 and NT for $2,000 plus a $1 run time fee, and other platforms will follow later this quarter. PrivateSafe+ and PrivateCard+ will be available in June for $80 for the reader with each card going for $25. There will be volume discounts to cut the prices to $50 and $10 respectively.
