Electronics giant Hitachi has launched a range of secure notebook PCs specifically aimed at companies and users looking to safeguard their data and equipment from malicious attacks.

The HN7200, 7300 and 8300 notebooks, which go on sale next month, come equipped with remote networking facilities, a configurable firewall and email filtering tools aimed at defending workers based outside the corporate firewall from attempted hacks and malicious code appended to emails.

"We realised the need to take a serious look at PC security in the UK," said Farid Khan, sales and marketing manager at Hitachi Software Europe.

"Remote users can be used unsuspectingly as a Trojan horse to wreak havoc. Triunet [the built in security suite] is basically a firewall - but a firewall existing on a client PC. It has anti-hacking, anti-intrusion and a monitoring presence."

The notebooks control all network access, preventing any unauthorised use while connected to the internet or corporate network. It also scans emails so that messages posing security threats are deleted before being delivered to the notebooks.

The new models come fitted with the Triunet suite, Windows 98, a 56K fax modem, at least 64Mb of Ram and a 6Gb hard disk. The HN8300 also has an Intel MPGA2 Celeron 550 processor and a 10/100 network card.

Market demand will depend on cost, according to analysts. "The question as to whether they'll sell will come down to whether customers feel it of any benefit to buy the software already installed or on its own," said Tony Lock, a senior analyst at Bloor Research.

Lock predicts that remote security will become less of a priority due to changing hardware use in the business environment. "As broadband becomes cheaper and more available, in the long term companies will be looking at the thin client area [as opposed to laptops]," he said.

First published in Computing