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War of wits between IT industry, hackers to enter new domain

Anusha Subramanian

The war of wits between the IT industry and the hacking community is to enter a new domain with the industry gaining an upper hand this time. A new software - A 448 bit symmetric encryption engine developed by a Bombay-based start-up company called Secure Soft India is set to make matters infinitely more complicated for hackers.

"The resulting 448-bit encryption engine is the strongest in the world. It would take all the computing power in the world working together for 1032 years to hack into a 448-bit encrypted file," said Abhay Mehta, founder and chief technology officer, Secure Soft India.

He added the idea to develop an encryption engine emerged from the US ban on the export of strong encryption products, since these are regarded on par with strategic arms. Traditionally, the only companies that have been developing encryption software of any serious nature are located in the US or Western Europe.

And Indian citizens cannot buy this encryption software since all these countries are signatories of the Wassner Agreement, which regards strong encryption at par with munitions or missiles and bans its export. What a buyer in India can get is a 64-bit encryption software which is trivial to hack into." According to people in the security industry, the industry standard is either 64 bits or 128 bits.

The company has invested 2000 man months in developing the engine and the products. They have already launched two of its products at the entry level called 'Secure IT 2000' and the premium product 'Cryptainer'.

Secure IT 2000, priced at Rs 3250 is ideal for encrypting files and sending encrypted files. An individual can send the encrypted files to the contacts and they need only the key to open it, not the software. 'Cryptainer' on the other hand is a Powerful on-the-fly (drag and drop) encryption. This product not just encrypts files but encrypts an entire virtual hard disk. Since the virtual hard disk disappears after it is dismounted, no one even knows that the hard disk contains encrypted data. This product is priced at Rs 5875.

Secure Soft is currently in the process of setting up its own distribution channels. The company is in advanced stages of negotiations with some large industrial groups in India to provide security to their entire operations. It is also negotiating for distribution deals in Europe and Japan and US is expected very soon. Secure Soft is expecting to earn revenues to the tune of Rs 200 million in the first year of its operations.

The importance of security in today's information society can hardly be exaggerated. It has relevance at every level--on a personal PC where the owner wishes to ensure confidentiality, to a corporate setup where information is disseminated on a need-to-know basis and percolates hierarchically.

Till a few years ago, protecting data was relatively easy. All one required was a strong safe with a single key, and a trusted employee to handle it. However, there is no privacy of any kind in a PC. The security aspects so far have been maintained only at a server and network levels.

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