Why Lightning's firewalls and VPN gateways are recommended and used by banks and other security-conscious clients ?

Most encryption and VPN devices on the market do not provide an adequate level of protection, only using DES and triple-DES.

Lightning uses state of the art technology, and gives the choice of the encryption algorithms to the user. The standard ones include IDEA, CAST, Blowfish, Twofish, AES, DES and 3DES to provide the needed level of transmission security for the user's (and his clients') sensitive and valuable data.

Also a lot of devices incorporate only basic management tools, not up to the required security level.

Lightning devices are uniquely different because of the following main selling points:

1. Made in Switzerland: Lightning is free in its selection and use of encryption algorithms and has rights to export its products internationally.
2. Lightning products incorporate a choice of algorithms to the user, including the famous IDEA™ International Data Encryption Algorithm (for which Lightning is a licensee).
   • Bruce Schneier, reputed cryptoanalyst, stated in his book Applied Cryptography, in 1996 that "In my opinion, IDEA is the best and most secure block algorithm available to the public at this time" (his opinion has not changed since then).
   • Interestingly, IDEA is not only the most secure algorithm at this time, but also the fastest one. A comparative study of MediaCrypt shows this.
3. They can be remotely managed using encrypted secure paths, including HTTPS, SSHv2 and IPSec. Any management services, like telnet and ftp can be easily switched on or off.
4. Split Security management allows separate restricted persons to manage the security parameters, like the encryption keys, apart from the network managers.
5. The same unit includes all-in-one, empowering the combined security check, allowing for multiple checks on the same data-streams:
   • a powerful firewall, using state-of-the-art stateful connection inspection techniques,
   • an option for Virtual Private Networks (VPN) using the standard IPSec, enhanced in its security aspects, and choices of encryption algorithms
   • the broadband router functions.
6. The hardware-based independent embedded system, powered by the up-to-date Lightning-Linux operating system, gives a strong and proven technological security platform
7. The system in permanent memory is immune to viruses
8. The integrated administration daemon permanently monitors integrated applications for their correct behavior, and automatically kills and restarts any suspect process.
9. The firewall logs authorized connections and reports unauthorized access attempts.

You may wish to know why banks chose Lightning, and how they use it extensively:

• Our Lightning-Flash No. 2 3/99 reports about major banks using Lightning encryption
• Our Lightning-Flash No. 5 4/01 reports about our Firewall technology
• Our Lightning-Flash No. 4 3/00 gives an introduction about Lightning's VPN Gateways.

Security isn't necessarily expensive, click on the menu "Buy", and ask for a quote.

Did you know that the MultiCom SpeedSurf has received the Editors' choice of the French reference magazine PC-Expert in a comparative study of firewalls including all other major brands ?

You may now wish to know more about:

• Why protect your sensitive data on the Internet ?