BAE SYSTEMS Receives Patent for Secure, Interoperable Technology.

MCLEAN, Va. -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to BAE Systems on September 5, 2006 for technology the company developed to securely support information sharing among disparate networks and applications. BAE Systems was granted United States Patent No. 7,103,914, which covers the use of specific security controls within a general purpose operating system to enforce and manage information flows and interactions within a multi-level security model.

"Our primary goal with this technology was information security. We fully recognized that our customers needed a computing platform to be able to quickly share information without vulnerability or the possibility of data leakage," said Roger Yee, BAE Systems' general manager for Information Assurance. "We continue to remain focused on delivering advanced information security technologies to the Federal and Defense markets to meet our customers' unique mission requirements."

BAE Systems initially filed for a provisional patent in 2002 and for a subsequent utility patent in 2003. A number of information-sharing and cross-domain solutions have already been leveraging the technology, including the XTS-400[TM] STOP[TM] 6.1E - a system that, itself, garnered the National Information Assurance Partnership's Common Criteria EAL5 Augmented rating in 2005.

"The patented security mechanisms in the XTS product line are truly unique in the industry. The wide variety of information access controls, combined with mandatory enforced process and memory separation in an easy to use general purpose computer system provides unmatched power and flexibility in creating high assurance, secure data sharing applications," said Andrew Earle, manager for Solutions Development.

XTS-400 and its predecessor versions are currently deployed in more than 700 systems across the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Communities for policy-controlled information exchange among homeland security, law enforcement, coalition partners, and the diplomatic community.

BAE Systems Information Technology is a full-service solutions provider of information systems and services and offers a broad spectrum of network and managed IT operations to provide secure, reliable information systems supporting its customers' mission-critical needs.

About BAE Systems:

BAE Systems is the premier trans-Atlantic defense and aerospace company, delivering a full range of products and services for air, land, and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, information technology solutions, and customer support services. BAE Systems, with 88,000 employees worldwide, had 2005 sales that exceeded $22 billion, excluding the group's former interest in Airbus.