Proginet Offers Secure Alternative to Leased Lines
Although more and more companies are leveraging the power of the Internet for business transactions, some are still hesitant to do so because of security concerns.
Proginet Corp. (Garden City, N.Y.) is hoping to ease those concerns with the introduction of CyberFusion, AS/400-compatible software for moving large amounts of information over the Internet securely and reliably.
"CyberFusion will help customers solve one of the most fundamental problems of the Internet today, moving information safely and effectively," says Kevin Bohan, VP of sales and customer support for Proginet. "CyberFusion offers the opportunity for customers to extend their corporate boundaries, using the Internet as an extension of their in-house networks."
Designed for large-scale, high-volume usage, CyberFusion combines the advanced characteristics of high-end enterprise file transfer systems with Internet features designed for ease of deployment and use. Because of its security features, CyberFusion gives corporations two main benefits--a cost-effective alternative to leased lines and the capability for secure inter-company file transfer.
Leased lines--permanently connected private telephone lines between two locations--are a very secure, but very costly, option for transferring data. According to Bohan, the cost of leased lines prompted Proginet to develop CyberFusion. "[One of Proginet's customers] was getting ready to launch a massive project and had 1,500 business partners they had to trade information with," he says. "The cost of transferring the information through leased lines was very high, so they came to us and said they wanted to do it over the Internet."
To securely transfer files across the Internet, CyberFusion is equipped with four encryption algorithms: DES, Triple DES, Blowfish and Blowfish Long. All four algorithms add security by changing the encryption continuously throughout the file. "Encryption allows customers to use the Internet as a private network," Bohan says.
For every file transfer, a company picks one of the four algorithms. According to Bohan, DES and Triple DES are the most popular. To put things in perspective, he says a hacker would need 22 hours and a million-dollar computer to break the DES encryption code.
For added security, CyberFusion performs all encryption and decryption automatically, using a process that creates random keys but never actually sends those products over the Internet. As a result, once endpoints are authenticated, all subsequent operations are automatic and secure. Administrators do not have to maintain key lists for each endpoint, so security information cannot be compromised.
CyberFusion is engineered after Proginet's Fusion FTMS and can seamlessly integrate with it. A system management application, Fusion FTMS enables comprehensive end-to-end management for all file transfers as well as the ability to deliver reports and distribute software across a range of platforms.
Other features of CyberFusion include: compression and checkpoint restart, which automatically restarts interrupted transfers from the point of interruption; automatic file retrieval, which automatically retrieves data from external points and posts it to "inbox" folders; and scheduling and automation, enabling transfers to be scheduled for specific dates and times.