ERACOM ANNOUNCES ENTRY LEVEL HARDWARE SECURITY MODULE FOR PAYMENT SYSTEMS.

Eracom, a vendor in the IT security market, has released a version of its latest generation of cryptographic adapter protectserver orange with payments functionality.

The protectserver orange eft is a hardware based provider of cryptographic services especially designed for the security needs of ATM and EFTPOS systems. It provides comprehensive facilities for secure PIN processing, card and message authentication, data confidentiality and the associated key management.

Protectserver orange eft performs the same functionality as a basic configuration of Eracom's traditional HSM protecthost white mark II but running at a maximum of 25 functions per second.

Protectserver orange eft is supplied with a software development kit that provides software developers and system integrators with the tooling and information they need to gain access to EFT services implemented either on protectserver orange (CSA 8000) adapter or on protecthost white mark II (Mark II ESM) box. This toolkit is currently available on Windows NT/2000 and Sun Solaris platforms and will soon be available on Linux, AIX and HP-UX.

An administration utility is also provided for device management and key management.

"The protectserver orange eft fills a huge gap at the low end of the market. It provides a high level of security and full functionality but at a much lower cost than existing products. Through our global presence we see the significant sales potential for this kind of EFT product, especially in the emerging markets, but also in systems where cost has previously precluded the use of hardware security modules" said Willi Mannheims, CEO of Eracom.[sections]