SANTA CLARA, CA,

Users of the rush of Bluetooth wireless personal area network (PAN) products, expected to arrive this fall, can use the system's encryption protocol, safe in the knowledge that their data is secure, says Cylink [NASDAQ:CYLK]. 

The IT security firm says that, thanks to the release of its original Safer encryption technology into the public domain in 1993, and the subsequent development and release of the Safer+ system, the Bluetooth standard now has the Cylink encryption at its heart. 

Cylink says that more than 1,700 companies are supporting the Bluetooth PAN protocol, which allows a variety of electronic devices to intercommunicate over short distances. 

Peter Slocum, Cylink's vice president of engineering, said that the firm's Safer+ technology protects the integrity of communications for both people and businesses. 

"Safer+ is the most recent example of our policy of developing cryptographic solutions for practical business problems, including an array of public key-based systems, and triple-DES, the industry standard for strong security," he said. 

Cylink says that, since the original Safer algorithm's was released into the public domain in 1993 at the Fast Software Encryption Conference in the UK, it has withstood the scrutiny of the world's top crypto-analysts. 

The Safer+ technology, meanwhile, is billed as meeting the needs of the next generation of security requirements. It was developed, Cylink says, by an international team of world-class cryptographers, led by Professor James Massey of ETH, Zurich, and funded by Cylink. 

As a result of the Bluetooth version of Safer+ now gaining industry attention, Cylink has posted full details of its algorithm and related information in the Resource Library of its Web site at www.cylink.com.