Secure Computing product review from October 1996

Features	.	.	.	.	.
Easy of Use (novice)	.	.	.	.	.
Easy of Use (professional)	.	.	.	.	.
Support	.	.	.	.	.
Perfomance	.	.	.	.	.
Value for Money	.	.	.	.	.
Overall
Comment: A genius of a program that may well replace several other products at one stroke; you can use it as a standard communication program - but it will at the same time optionally give you high security. You can know that your sensitive electronic mail cannot be intercepted and read by an unauthorized person. Similarly recipients may confirm for themselves that the message came from you - not an impostor.

IronBridge is a communications package designed to meet today's security needs, and will be of special interest to those who make extensive use of a modem. IronBridge has been designed for communication between two IronBridge users. Alternatively communication can be between a single IronBridge user and:

• a BBS station
• Unix server
• any other server equiped with a Z-modem or other standard transfer protocol

IronBridge contains the following features:

• Encryption of data prior to transmission to ensure safe communication. Data is authenticated using digital signatures
• A comprehensive system of configuration enabling the pre-setting of up to 15 different configurations, including a default configuration
• The compression of files prior to transmission
• Encryption of the key library, which is also password protected
• A user audit log which records for example users and their activity, the quality of data transfer, times and dates of data transmission, as well as times of logins and logouts.

IronBridge technical summary

• Use of the Ellipt and RSA algorithms used for key exchange and digital signatures
• Symmetric encryption using the DES and IDEA algorithms
• Files for transmission can be compressed, signed, and encrypted
• Communication can be made using parallel or serial connections
• User-friendly and easy to install
• Can communicate with multiple terminals and modems simultaneously
• Logs all user activity in an audit log
• Contains a large database of possible modems both for configuration and communication purposes