Hitachi Cable, Ltd. announces the development of client software designed for fingerprint recognition, enabling finger-scan network authentication for use with our proprietary Apresia(R) *1 authentication switches. The software is the fruit of a collaboration with Digital Development Systems (President: Kenji Miyoshino, Head office: Nagoya-city, Aichi Pref., referred to below as "DDS"), and is slated for launch along with the fingerprint-recognition device developed by DDS on April 15.

Unauthorized disclosure of customer information is a growing concern. In most cases, the sources of leaks are in-house employees; today's challenge to network administrators is thus to exercise vigilant control over internal networks. While most companies establish firewalls to prevent unauthorized access from outside the company, few take measures to limit the relative ease with which employees may access internal networks. When an employee accesses an internal network from a private computer or from a wireless LAN access point outside the control of the network administrator, the company in question is often ill-equipped to determine the identity of the employee or even the time of access. This lack of adequate security can delay the detection of unauthorized use of information.

Our Apresia(R) authentication switch offers network authentication with browser-based ID/password verification. This function allows the administrator to keep track of who is using which IP address at which terminal, as well as to identify the relevant switch and the time and duration of access. The latest addition of a highly reliable, easy-to-use biometric fingerprint- recognition system will prevent one individual's use of another's ID to gain unauthorized access to a network.
The fingerprint-recognition device developed by DDS, in which the user swipes a finger over a reader with a built-in sensor, adopts a proprietary method of frequency analysis disabling reproduction of a fingerprint from stored data, with a false rejection rate of less than 0.0004%.
The complete authentication system consists of the fingerprint-recognition device and associated software, server software, and the Apresia(R) authentication switch. We plan to offer the set of fingerprint-recognition devices (100 units), fingerprint-recognition server software, and the Apresia(R) authentication switch at the low price of less than 2 million yen. (Price includes fingerprint-recognition devices at a fixed price of 19,800 yen per unit, with the server software and Apresia(R) authentication switch at open price)

This authentication system is expected to be widely adopted in financial markets, where particularly rigorous network authentication is required, as well as by companies taking active measures to control access to databases of personal information and other types of confidential data.


Hitachi Cable will work aggressively to expand the sales of the Apresia(R) system with its new fingerprint-authentication feature. It is expected that the sales of the complete Apresia(R) authentication package will reach approximately 3 billion yen in fiscal 2005.

Note:
An authentication switch is an L2 switch equipped with a built-in user identification function that controls access to the network at client terminals. A user authentication function is available in the Apresia(R)2000 series.

Apresia(R) is a registered trademark of Hitachi Cable, Ltd.