July 23, 2007

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Athena Announces the First Public Key Microprocessor

Latest addition to TeraFire® family adds flexibility, performance

Gainesville, FL - July 23, 2007 - The Athena Group, Inc., the world leader in high-performance modular exponentiation intellectual property (IP) cores for public key cryptography, today announced the introduction of its T5200 TeraFire® security accelerator, the first programmable public key microprocessor. Coupling Athena's ultra-efficient arithmetic technology and a comprehensive instruction set, the T5200 delivers both performance and flexibility for applications ranging from low speed data terminals to high performance network security appliances.

The T5200 TeraFire core employs Athena's patented arithmetic technology to deliver low latency computation within stringent area and power budgets. Software programmability enables the T5200 family to tackle every mainstream public key protocol, from RSA and Diffie-Hellman to the myriad elliptic curve operations and protocols, including the operations required for NSA Suite B. This unprecedented flexibility gives the T5200 the capability to adapt to future requirements and protocols with a simple firmware update, effectively future-proofing any security implementation.

“The T5200 leverages our experience delivering prior generations of TeraFire solutions to our customers,” says Dr. Jon Mellott, CTO of Athena. “The T5200's programmability, improved performance, lower power, reduced area, new system integration options, and extra configuration options enable our customers to more efficiently reach their business objectives.”

“When we purchased TeraFire products from Athena we received great products and service, and gained a partner,” says Doug Whiting, Founder and Chief Scientist at Hifn. “We needed a fast public key accelerator with full instruction set programmability and the ability to perform NSA Suite B for our next generation devices, and Athena delivered.”

TeraFire security accelerator cores are designed specifically for integrated SoC applications. Part of the broadest public key accelerator line in the industry, Athena's TeraFire cores are available in performance levels suitable for every application, and have been delivered in technologies ranging from FPGAs to structured and standard cell ASICs.

About The Athena Group, Inc.
The Athena Group, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida licenses signal processing and security technology that delivers breakthrough performance, reduced area, and reduced power consumption in a broad range of SoC products. Athena technology is ideal for leading edge applications such as secure e-commerce, wireless communications, and image processing.

Athena was founded in 1986 and is privately held. For more information, please visit www.athena-group.com.

About Hifn
Hifn (NASDAQ:HIFN) powers network and information security. Leveraging over a decade of leadership and expertise in data encryption and compression, we are a trusted partner to industry innovators for whom security is critical to their success. With the majority of secure global communications flowing through Hifn technology, the convergence of security, storage and assured access drives our product roadmap forward. We will continue as the first resource for the toughest security requirements because we anticipate as we innovate in a field that leaves no margin for error. Hifn sets the industry standards and technology firsts to secure, compress and assure information wherever needed. For more information, please visit:www.hifn.com.

Press Contact
Pat Rugg, VP Sales and Marketing
The Athena Group, Inc.
408 W. University Avenue, Suite 306
Gainesville, FL 32601
Phone: (352) 371-2567 ext. 307
Toll-free: (800) 741-7440
Email: prugg@athena-group.com