RSA Ships New Release of Crypto Toolkit BSAFE 2.1, the Professional Cryptographer's Toolkit

Trusted by Lotus, Novell and Microsoft, Now Supports More Crypto Algorithms, Bigger Key Sizes

Redwood City, California -- July 21, 1994 -- RSA announced initial shipment of BSAFE 2.1, a new version of the industry's best-selling crypto development kit. The toolkit allows software developers to easily integrate state-of-the-art encryption and digital signature features into virtually any application. The timing of the announcement is particularly significant, with the recent rash of Internet break-ins and government flip-flopping on crypto standards and policy, corporate and private customers are more educated and more sensitive than ever about the privacy and authentication of their data. BSAFE is the world's best-selling and most comprehensive cryptography toolkit, with more than 4 (four) million installs worldwide. BSAFE code can already be found inside some of the world's best selling software, providing the security "engine" for products such as Microsoft Windows for Workgroups, Lotus Notes, Novell Netware, ORACLE SQL*Net, General Magic Telescript, and WordPerfect Informs.

Major New Features of BSAFE 2.1

Support for more crypto algorithms, including RSA, DES, Triple-DES, Diffie-Hellman, RC2, RC4 and advanced "secret sharing" techniques. Virtually all of today's popular secret- and public-key algorithms are included in BSAFE 2.1, providing the developer with maximum flexibility when designing his security solution.
Larger Key Sizes: Developers can use very large key sizes for added cryptographic security - up to 2048 bits long with some algorithms!
More Flexibility: Developers can now call BSAFE routines from C++ as well as C code.
Better Performance and Memory Management: Many of BSAFE's cryptographic operations have been optimized for faster operation and more efficient utilization of system resources.
More Comprehensive Standards Adherence: BSAFE supports all popular encryption standards, including Internet PEM, PKCS, DES, and X.509.

Easy, Full-Featured Development Environment

BSAFE 2.1 can dramatically reduce the cost associated with development of secure applications by giving developers a head start - With BSAFE 2.1, any programmer can develop secure applications (without a background in cryptography, mathematics or number theory.) Best of all, by using the toolkit from the most trusted and experienced company in the cryptography business, developers won't be troubled by embarrassing and costly software recalls that often result from failed "homegrown" security techniques. BSAFE 2.1 features an object-based API utilizing data abstraction, providing for more efficient development. BSAFE 2.1 is also re-entrant, so it can be shared by many applications at once - a necessity in today's advanced multitasking operating environments. Long, computationally-intensive cryptographic operations are interruptible or even cancelable, and there are a variety of platform-specific optimizations available.

A Rich Choice of Algorithms

BSAFE 2.1 includes routines for the patented RSA and Diffie-Hellman public-key techniques; the popular DES, Triple-DES and DESX secret-key ciphers; the exportable RC2 and RC4 variable key size ciphers; secret sharing and key escrow; the defacto standard MD, MD2 and MD5 hashing algorithms; and extensive routines for pseudorandom number generation. Many algorithms feature user-definable key sizes up to 2048 bits for added security. BSAFE 2.1 features some of the fastest, most efficient implementations of these algorithms available. And of course, BSAFE 2.1 fully supports PKCS, (the Public Key Cryptography Standards) the internationally-recognized public-key interoperability specifications.

Ready for the Future

BSAFE 2.1 was constructed to be modular, so developers can link in only the algorithms they need. It's also extensible, so they can insert new algorithms in the future - no matter where technology or government standards take them. BSAFE 2.1 also supports multiple key and data representations including previous BSAFE 1.x formats, BSAFE 2.0x formats and ASN.1 BER (Basic Encoding Rules). Consequently, development is faster and applications built with BSAFE 2.1 have better "forward compatibility" with future encryption techniques and standards.

About RSA Data Security, Inc.

RSA Data Security, Inc. is a recognized world leader in cryptography, with over 4 million copies of its software encryption and authentication technologies installed and in use worldwide. RSA is the worldwide defacto standard for public key encryption and digital signatures, and is part of existing and proposed standards for the Internet, CCITT, ISO, ANSI, IEEE, and business and financial networks around the globe. The Company develops and markets platform-independent developer's kits, end-user products, and provides comprehensive consulting services in the cryptographic sciences. RSA technology has been embedded in the products of companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, IBM and many others. Founded in 1982 by the inventors of the RSA Public Key Cryptosystem, the company is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

The RSA logo, BSAFE, RSA Public Key Cryptosystem, RSA Digital Signature, RSA Digital Envelope, RC2, RC4, MD, MD2 and MD5 are trademarks of RSA Data Security, Inc. All other product or company names are trademarks of their respective corporations.