Weston, FL – Thales announced today its new state-of-the-art Datacryptor® SONET/SDH high-speed encryption device. Marking its second high-speed encryption product release to the market in a year, Thales is fast becoming a leader in the high-performance encryption market, positioning its business to meet the demands for protecting critical information of both government and commercial customers.

The new SONET/SDH model will introduce line and path encryption supporting OC-3, OC-12, and OC-48 circuits. The product will support 3DES (168-bit), and AES (128, 192 and 256-bit) algorithms, and uses automatic exchange techniques to enable secure and cost-effective key management.

“ Many of our federal and large commercial customers are moving to high-speed SONET link encryptors to secure their WAN and Metro infrastructures. The Datacryptor SONET is now available to meet this demand,” said Ron Howell, Lead Network Architect, AT&T.

Following the tradition of its successful Datacryptor Link, X.25, Frame Relay, IP and Gigabit models, the new state-of-the-art SONET/SDH offering is compatible with a single secure management application and designed to the highest cryptographic standards, including FIPS 140-2. The units are transparent to SONET switches and regenerators, and offer customers easy scalability and extensive auditing capabilities for central management and auditing. The Datacryptor SONET/SDH product’s proven performance is currently installed in networks in Europe. High reliability and universal power options including DC voltage ensure its wide deployment even in the most demanding environments.

“ The new product offering firmly places Thales as an industry leader in the security market. The increased demand for network performance and cost-effective security solutions are driving innovative, reliable and cost-effective encryption devices, such as the Datacryptor SONET,” said Cindy Provin, President of the e-Security activity of Thales in the Americas.

About Thales
Thales is an international electronics and systems group, serving defence, aerospace, services and security markets. The group employs 61,500 people worldwide and generated revenues of 10.6 billion in 2003.

Operating in three main markets covering e-security, card payment and network security, Thales’ e-security activities address the business, government and finance industries’ need for cryptographic security products and solutions. Over half of the world’s banks, together with the majority of the busiest exchanges, currently use Thales technology. For more than 20 years the company has been at the forefront of security and payment technology, co-operating and contributing to set the industry standards used for financial transactions and e-commerce globally. Thales’ e-security business offers a wide range of security solutions to protect Government and Defence critical information infrastructures, thereby positioning the company as a leading worldwide supplier of certified network security products.