Argus Announces Secure Electronic Commerce Suite for Sun Enterprise Servers

(Urbana, Illinois) Argus Systems Group, Inc. has announced plans to deliver in the first quarter of 1997, a suite of integrated, best of breed software components which form a comprehensive security solution for Internet and Web-based electronic commerce, home banking, and inter-company communications. The Argus Secure Electronic Commerce Suite will support secure electronic transactions and secure data communications over the Internet while protecting internal computing environments from external and internal security threats. Argus has integrated firewall and network encryption software and web-based commercial applications with the company's Fortify security framework for Solaris. When installed on a Solaris system, the Argus Fortify software creates a trusted operating environment which has been certified by government authorities to meet stringent, internationally-recognized security criteria.

Fortify is currently being used in demanding military environments around the world to safeguard critical information systems. Fortify on Sun UltraSPARC®servers has been selected for use in banking environments to facilitate secure Web-based home banking and to build secure information kiosks which allow consumers to access bank account data and initiate account transactions remotely.

"The importance of comprehensive security in the electronic commerce and home banking marketplace cannot be overstated. The money involved in banking and electronic commerce will certainly attract the best and brightest cyber-thieves in the business. They'll be patient and armed with the most sophisticated tools. To counter this threat Argus offers a security framework certified to meet the highest levels of security. Netscape provides the market-leading commercial web server technologies. And Sun's scalable family of high-performance enterprise servers are able to meet the most demanding electronic commerce requirements. The integrated strengths of these three companies makes a compelling electronic commerce solution for today's marketplace,"said Randy Sandone, President and CEO of Argus. "With a certified secure operating system as its foundation, the Argus Secure Electronic Commerce Suite can be safely employed by merchants, banks, and financial services companies to establish a secure commercial presence on the web. The revenue generating potential of the web can now be realized."

Comprehensive, End-to-End Security

The foundation of the Argus Secure Electronic Commerce Suite is Fortify, a software package which adds comprehensive security mechanisms to Sun's Solaris 2.x operating environment. Fortify, which includes Decaf, a state-of-the-art security utility for Java, protects all system resources, including commercial applications, web servers, databases, network deamons, and file systems from external and internal attack and from holes in applications programs and sloppy system administration. Fortify's security umbrella extends from the commerce server to internal corporate systems and databases which support the commercial transaction. End-user (consumer) authentication and transaction security is provided by the industry-standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) from Netscape Communications. Support for the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol will be added in the future. SunScreen-EFS from Sun Microsystems serves as a built-in Internet/intranet firewall protecting the commerce platform and internal networks. SunScreen-EFS is also a high performance network encryption server supporting the SKIP protocol and a variety of standard encryption algorithms. Using SKIP, secure Virtual Private Networks can be established between branch offices, with trading partners, and even within local corporate networks.

"From a consumer's point of view, there is no such thing as too much security when dealing with online financial transactions," said Rob Hall, Vice President of Financial Services, Sun Microsystems Computer Company. "We look forward to working with Argus in developing additional security protection for our customers in the retail banking community."

Argus Systems Group, Inc. headquartered in Urbana, Illinois is a leading supplier of trusted operating system products and services. Argus is committed to providing state-of-the-art enhanced security solutions for emerging network-centric environments. Argus technologies support multiple platforms, from desktop to mainframe, through collaboration with leading system vendors and strict adherence to open system standards. Argus markets and supports its products throughout the world with affiliates located in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.

For more information email to: info@argus.cu-online.com or visit our web site at http://www.decaf.com.

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: Randall J. Sandone, President

November 27, 1996

©1996 Argus Systems Group, Inc. Solaris, Solaris 2.4, Trusted Solaris, SPARC and Ultra SPARC are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Decaf is a trademark of Argus Systems Group, Inc. All other products or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.