The United States will follow Australia's lead on e-security, following a contract win by a technology firm grown with local grants - however, questions remain over who will get the lion's share of the employment boost it creates.

CTAM, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian company Senetas Corporation, has secured a lucrative contract to supply an unnamed US defence agency with hardware to encrypt information bearing the US military's second highest security rating.

A recipient of the federal government's research and development grants, CTAM has to date received over AU$500,000 in government funding.

However, the contract to manufacture the devices has been awarded to the grant recipient's partner, the United Kingdom-headquartered Thales E-security. It is understood that Thales E-security, which employs around 65,000 people globally, will manufacture the devices in the US.

CTAM's contract is expected to generate around 30 new local jobs as it grows to meet the demands of the contract. Senetas spokesperson, Francis Galbally, couldn't say how many jobs the contract would generate at Thales's US plant.

Galbally said the fact that high-value jobs would remain within Australia was the most important aspect of the contract to consider.

As a part of the deal some components will be manufactured locally for export and Australians personnel would be sent United States to train members of the US operation.

The technology's proving grounds were in local federal government agencies. The Australian Taxation Office, Australian Federal Police, Department of Health, the Defence Signals Directorate and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade helped to get the technology off the ground.

The Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston, has congratulated CTAM for the contract victory.

"It's a great result for CTAM, demonstrating what can be achieved by Australian companies on a world stage with the right technology and commercial approach," said Alston.

Senetas expects the contract to return around AU$13 million over the short-term, but believes the technology could eventually return up to AU$50 million per year.

Galbally said CTAM is now set to grab a large share of US$1.6 billion United States congress recently allocated to improving the country's cyber-security.

The security hardware is designed to work in conjunction with high-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks.

According to Galbally, legacy encryption security technologies used on US ATM networks reduce their speed to a fifth of their potential while CTAM preserves around 80 percent of the network's efficiency.

"They will all have to be replaced soon," said Galbally.

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