NSA extends a deal for buying crypto cards
NSA extends a deal for buying crypto cards
- By William Jackson
- Mar 15, 2002
The National Security Agency has awarded a three-year contract for up to $33.6 million worth of Fortezza Plus Crypto Cards from Rainbow Mykotronx.
NSA distributed enough of the cards in two years to exhaust an earlier $15.3 million contract with the company. Rainbow Mykotronx, a division of Rainbow Technologies Inc. of Irvine, Calif., is the developer of the Fortezza Plus PC Card, used for securing classified voice traffic.
The card holds the cryptographic engine for the Secure Terminal Equipment platform, which supplies secure voice and 128-Kbps data and multimedia transmissions over Integrated Services Digital Network or public switched telephone connections.
The card also provides onboard storage of user credentials, keys and digital certificates. It has a Krypton 4C RISC cryptographic processor.
About the Author
William Jackson is a senior writer of GCN and the author of the CyberEye blog.