November 7, 2003

Deepnines' Sleuth9 Security System immediately stops mimail attacks at the perimeter of the network

DALLAS, TEXAS - DeepNines Technologies, a leading enterprise network security company, today announced its Sleuth9 Security System instantly stops the latest virus, Mimail, that exploits Microsoft Outlook email systems. The Mimail.c worm clones itself by sending emails to addresses in a compromised machine's address book. Some strains of the virus send HTTP and ICMP flooding attacks to various anti-spam organizations; other strains capture information on the compromised system and send it to a number of anonymous email addresses registered to free email domains. Companies with desktop-based anti-virus solutions must update every machine on the network with the latest signature file to prevent being attacked. Those that have Sleuth9 installed in front of the router only have to update Sleuth9 with the signature file to prevent the Mimail virus from penetrating the network and reaching the email system. This saves companies a significant amount of time and serves as a more effective means by which to stop the virus.

Sleuth9 stops Mimail, along with other worms and viruses, by inspecting all email at the perimeter before infections can penetrate the network. If an infected machine connects to the network and an infected email passes through Sleuth9, the system will automatically detect and stop the virus as well. When alarms are activated within Sleuth9, administrators are automatically notified when the virus is detected. With Sleuth9's ingress filtering functionality, organizations can also prevent variations of the virus that collect information on infected machines from emailing the virus to anonymous email accounts. Sleuth9 even prevents networks from propagating Mimail flooding attacks via HTTP and ICMP protocols. With Sleuth9's ForensiX Capture System, IT professionals can also access IP and other relevant traffic information to identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities related to Mimail and other viruses or attacks.

"Perimeter security is paramount to any security strategy and the Mimail virus makes this even more obvious," said Dan Jackson, DeepNines' president and COO. "Companies must take a layered approach to security and that means deploying a layer of security at the perimeter of the network that can stop these known and more importantly, unknown attacks."

The Sleuth9 Security System is a proactive, intelligent, intrusion prevention and anti-virus solution specifically designed to stop complex, blended threats. Sleuth9 sits invisibly, in front of the router and evaluates all network traffic, both ingress and egress, at the packet level, to determine what is valid and what is malicious. Sleuth9 detects and automatically prevents cyber attacks from entering or leaving a network by forming a new perimeter of defense against DoS, DDoS, Trojan horses, self-propagating attacks, worms and viruses as well as other attacks launched from infected internal or external computers. Sleuth9 can be deployed at the perimeter of the network or in front of other likely targets such as web servers, mail servers, application servers, etc.

About Deep Nines Inc. DeepNines offers a scalable security platform for Global 2000 companies with a vertical market focus in education, government, telecommunications, energy and financial services. The DeepNines Security Edge PlatformT integrates intelligent firewall, intrusion prevention, best-of-breed secure content management, forensics and reporting. It operates outside the network infrastructure, improving organizations' security "deep into the nines." DeepNines' Security Edge Platform, the company's patent-pending security system, is a fully automated signature and behavior-based, intrusion prevention and traffic management system preventing known and unknown attacks from entering an organization's network. The Security Edge Platform runs on Solaris and Linux platforms from Sun Microsystems. To learn more about Deep Nines visit www.deepnines.com.