NEW YORK — Cold War technology is finding a hot new market in protecting information on the Internet and corporate computer networks.
Harris Computer Systems Corp., SecureWare Inc. and others are selling corporations on high-tech gear that once foiled computer break-ins at the U.S. Defense Department. Those same safeguards appeal to companies that use linked computers known as "intranets" to transfer sensitive data.
"There's much greater awareness about features that had only been interesting to the government," said David Arnovitz, president of SecureWare, whose data-protection business was bought by Hewlett-Packard Co. in February.
SecureWare developed the so-called "trusted operating system" that manages First Security Network, the first bank on the Internet.
Other companies sell encryption software, "firewalls" and "tracers" designed to keep electronic snoops from plundering corporate payrolls, business plans and other secrets.
"If someone does establish a beachhead, hopefully these systems will be able to detect and evict them before he or she can do harm," said Michael Zboray, an Internet security consultant for the Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn.
The company, which converted its data-protection system from defense applications, makes computer operating systems that include locks to keep out unauthorized intruders and "onionskin" layers of access between the Internet and a private network, or between computer users in a corporation.
Zboray estimates the data-security market at $100 million to $120 million this year. He expects that to grow rapidly through the end of the century as more companies hook up to the Internet, the public web of computers used by millions of people each day.
"Nothing is really safe if you open your network to the Internet," said Wendell Sissler, a network salesman with Client Systems Inc. in Denver.
For companies, security and network management are a logical next step. Many built their networks with expediency--not safety--in mind, said Marcus Ranum, a networking and security consultant at Information Works! in Baltimore.
"Everybody's network is sort of a mishmash," he said. "The software developers playing 'Doom' are on the same wire as the accounting department crunching numbers."
Products that set up barriers to online users grabbed Wall Street's attention in recent months when so-called firewall makers Secure Computing Corp. and Raptor Systems Inc. went public.
