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Thales News Release

Thales Announces PayShield 9000

October 14, 2009

PayShield 9000 Delivers Unrivalled Performance, Resilience, And Key Management Features

Thales, a leader in information systems and communications security, announces payShield 9000, its next generation of payment Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), providing world leading cryptographic performance and resiliency options to meet the business continuity requirements necessary to support the growth in global transaction volumes. Designed specifically to secure card payment systems, payShield 9000 is a high-performance tamper-resistant security platform that protects cryptographic keys and other sensitive information such as customer PINs and cardholder data.

Thales is the first provider to offer dual power supplies in a payment HSM supporting the resiliency needs of high-capacity shared infrastructures in mission-critical security systems within modern data centers. payShield 9000 also satisfies the ever increasing demand for performance by delivering the highest global performance figures in the industry – processing up to 1,500 transactions per second (TPS). Thales Remote HSM Manager facilitates the secure remote management of devices, reducing operational costs for customers with remote or multiple HSM sites. payShield 9000 can be shared between different applications without compromising security responsibilities by cryptographically isolating the keys each application uses. Each set of keys can be independently administered by different areas of the business. These key features not only address the operational and management requirements of centralized resources but reduce the costs of operating HSMs deployed in today’s “lights out” data centers.

Thales payShield 9000 includes a new range of software licenses, enabling card issuers, acquirers, and payment processors, to select specific packages and functionality that match their needs. Issuers of magnetic stripe and EMV cards will benefit from packages enabling them to meet the latest industry mandates and best practices for security and deploy effective solutions in the fight against card fraud.

The new hardware platform is Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) ready, to support future payment system requirements. It is also designed to meet both FIPS 140-2 level 3, the most widely adopted security benchmark for cryptographic modules, and the recently introduced Payment Card Industry Hardware Security Module standard (PCI HSM).

“The payment card industry constantly faces new challenges just to remain competitive, with an increasing need to support a wide range of new business offerings such as remote payment channels, increased protection for cardholder data and the growing trend for contactless cards and mobile applications,” says Franck Greverie, Vice President, Managing Director for the information systems security activities of Thales. “For more than 20 years, Thales has been at the forefront of security and payments technology. payShield 9000 further demonstrates this commitment and has been designed to meet the high availability and business continuity needs of our customers whilst delivering features to meet their future requirements.”

Thales payShield 9000 is fully backwards compatible with the Thales HSM 8000 and RG7000 product lines. Customers can therefore deploy payShield 9000 models with minimal impact on existing applications and avoid costly integration work.

For more information on payShield 9000 click here.

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