Less than a month after making a big splash at the world’s biggest electronics trade show, a Lawrence-based company is riding the wave that had been four years in the making.

Griffin Technologies, 916 Mass., is busy adding employees and scrambling to fill orders for the company’s latest incarnation of SecuriKey, its flagship product.

The product, SecuriKey Professional Edition, made its debut last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it beat out more than 1,000 new gadgets to be a “Best in CES” award finalist in the accessories category.

The award, and resulting buzz, led to a rush of orders at the Mac World show a week later in San Francisco. After a couple of leading consultants bought SecuriKey packages during the first day of MacWorld, they incorporated the product into their presentation a day later, and the rush was on.

The first load of 50 metal cases didn’t stick around long. Nor did the next 40 rushed in by FedEx.

“We thought we’d make a cool-looking pyramid in the back of our booth, and maybe even sell a few,” said Bennett Griffin, the company’s president, chief executive officer and founder. “But we had a flood of interest.”

Not a bad start for the latest evolution of a product created in 2000 inside a small office upstairs from an outdoors shop in downtown Lawrence: SecuriKey.

The key is a plastic-encased encryption microchip, which plugs into a computer’s USB port. Without the key, the computer won’t allow access to anything on it.

The product is Griffin Technologies’ entry into a market that’s expected to grow this year to $2 billion for commercial computer access control, according to International Data Corp.

Information security as a whole — anti-virus protection, firewalls, network security and the like — should be a $36 billion industry by 2006, IDC says.

“We should be able to get a little bit of that,” Griffin said.

The SecuriKey version that garnered praise at the electronics show is the most advanced yet: The key works both for Windows and Macintosh machines.

“SecuriKey Professional demonstrated an ease-of-use that is important for true mass-market security products,” said Jon M. Gibson, a freelance writer and peripherals expert who served as a judge for the accessories competition. “Many encryption-based security products can be tricky for consumers to use. (It) meets the ‘Can my mom use it?’ test, giving it broad user value.”

The buzz from both shows also is giving Griffin Technologies plenty of new leads. Perhaps the best: Getting a once-over from some key people at Apple Corp., who have invited a Griffin Technologies team to corporate headquarters to discuss a possible sales gig in Apple’s stores — an exclusive chain that now stands at 98 stores, including one on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo.

“We’re in discussions with them,” Griffin said. “It’s not down to, ‘Where will they be in the stores,’ but they’ve opened the door.”

In August, Griffin Technologies took in a new round of owners — about a dozen investors from Lawrence and the Kansas City metro area. The staff has grown from seven to 10 during the past six months, with plans to hire an additional person for tech support and possibly more down the road.

James Griffin, shipping manager and Bennett Griffin’s brother, sure wouldn’t mind getting a little help.

The company’s daily orders now outpace the load from an entire week.

“Five minutes,” he said Monday afternoon, between clicks on his computer and reviews of the printed order forms already filled from MacWorld. “We like to secure orders, but it’s nice when there’s a little bit of a break — give me five minutes.”