Vutek Security Device Foils Best of Hackers : San Diego Firm Hopes to Take Advantage of Federal Insistence on Computer Secrecy

If a paid endorsement crafted by San Diego’s best-known computer hacker means anything, an IBM PC and PC-compatible computer security system developed by San Diego-based Vutek has quite a future.

“I couldn’t have been a successful hacker if companies had used Enix.sys,” observed Bill Landreth, a Del Mar resident who, prior to a 1984 arrest by federal authorities, hacked his way into numerous private computers.

Landreth’s paid endorsement suggests that “from a security standpoint, (Enix.sys) is unbreakable.”

Vutek, a fledgling board manufacturer which operates from bare-bones offices in a converted warehouse in Sorrento Valley, hopes Enix.sys will lead the company that started selling products just a year ago toward a secure future in the competitive add-on board industry.

Interestingly, although Landreth credited Vutek with creating a system which can’t be broken, Vutek couldn’t say the same thing about the product’s original name. Initially, the add-on board was called “Enigma,” a marketing play on the wildly successful code-cracking machine which helped the Allies “read” enemy messages during World War II.

Unfortunately for Vutek, another company already had laid claim to Enigma, and Vutek, with some prompting, settled upon Enix.sys, a name that sounds like Enigma--but has no base in cryptography.

Enix.sys has grabbed a leading position in the new and rapidly growing security systems field, said Winn Schwartau, Vutek’s vice president of marketing. The security systems limit access to files stored in PCs. Enix.sys is an add-on board which simply plugs into a PC chassis while other products are generally software programs.

PC owners and operators--including national security agencies, the banking industry and a wide range of “mom and pop” companies--are purchasing the security systems to keep intruders from reading, altering or destroying stored information.

Concern over PC security rises “every time there’s a story in the newspaper about a computer break-in,” said Ted Crooks, a San Diego computer consultant.

Although mainframe systems generally are equipped with systems that baffle all but the most determined intruders, PC owners and operators have recently started shopping around for products which will safeguard business information that ranges from salaries and personnel information to business plans and correspondence.

Of course, different PC owners have different security needs.

“Traditional software is not going to be good enough to keep out a pro,” Crooks suggested. “So it (is a question of) which level of security you want and . . . how much money you want to spend.”

Security agencies and the banking and defense industries, however, are willing to pay “for solutions which are so complex that you can’t break them without a computer that’s as big as the universe,” Crooks said.

Price and simplicity are more important to small business owners who might simply want a system which will “keep Ethyl the typist from accidently destroying information by hitting the wrong (computer) key,” Crooks said. “There’s a big potential market for that kind of product.”

Sometimes, though, just spending money isn’t the answer. Crooks, who has been designing software for a government agency that needed to safely store “sensitive health information about people who have certain diseases,” eventually suggested that the names be stored “in a room where (the agency could) simply lock the door and keep the bad guys out.”

Vutek’s Enix.sys, however, is aimed at businesses which can’t store information under lock and key. The multilevel security device limits PC entry to users who are entrusted with a log-on password. Enix.sys also restricts different users to various levels of information, encrypts and decrypts files, and meets Federal Reserve Bank message authentication requirements.

Revenue growth for Enix.sys initially will be powered by an increasing government push for security, Schwartau said.

Increased government concern about security has created that push. “(President) Reagan has signed a directive that means sensitive information has to be classified and secure,” said President Harry Bubnack. “We’re talking to the CIA about thousands and thousands of these units and once the CIA has (Enix.sys), other agencies should follow.”

The security push also has been fueled by the federal regulators who want to make transfers of bank information more secure.

Although Vutek will generate about 95% of its anticipated $4 million revenues for the year ending Sept. 30 from what Schwartau described as “domestically produced knock-offs of the market leaders,” the company’s future growth must come from Enix.sys and new generations of add-on boards that “incorporate more engineering, more value added to the product,” Bubnack said.

Enix.sys could generate as much as 40% of Vutek’s revenues mix if hefty federal government orders materialize this summer, Bubnack said.