Overview
Security Processors

Hifn classifies its security processors into three broad families: Algorithm Accelerators that are advanced cryptography co-processors, FlowThrough™ processors that act as a complete "bump in the wire" security protocol subsystem, and Lookaside processors that work in conjunction with a host processor, such as a network processor or a general purpose processor.

Hifn's Algorithm Accelerators are complete cryptography processors with state of the art symmetric key and public key functions. Algorithm Accelerators have a flexible cryptography pipeline but do not manipulate the packet header or trailer. Because the Algorithm Accelerator does not manipulate any protocol dependent packets, they can be used in a wide range of applications including proprietary protocols and data storage.

FlowThrough packet processors perform complete packet manipulation as well as security policy and SA lookup without the aid of an external host processor. Once configured, the layer 2 or layer 3 security processing including the policy and SA lookup is completely offloaded. In addition, Hifn’s FlowThrough processors can also perform the control plane processing associated with the security protocol, for example, the IKE handshake protocol.

Lookaside packet processors perform complete IPsec or SSL packet processing. However, Lookaside processors require a host processor for packet classification, policy and security association (SA) lookup. This family of high performance processors reduces host processor overhead by converting an IP packet or TCP record to an IPsec or SSL packet. 

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*ARC4 is an algorithm completely compatible with RSA’s RC4™