AN EMERGING Central Florida software business is set to become the first company outside Europe to be awarded certification by the US Department of Defense to allow it to protect sensitive American government information.

One of the co-founders of Hurri-Solutions, Steve Craft, aged 44, who holds a sciences Masters degree from Edinburgh University, said: "It’s absolutely great news. We are extremely proud."

The Department of Defense is due to authorise the firm’s product - called Hurri-BackOfficeGuard - as "legislation compliant secure information management" imminently.

A spokesman for Polk City based HurriCraft, said the encryption product was designed to provide data protection for sensitive material "when at rest in a network, on a desktop device, and also for data in flight, such as e-mail communications".

The spokesman said that the encryption data would also "allow authorities to verify who they are dealing with on the other side of an e-mail communication or digital sign communication".