November 20, 2003

Deepnines delivers solution to thwart extortion demands from cyber criminals

DALLAS, TEXAS - DeepNines Technologies, a leading enterprise network security company, today announced its Sleuth9 Security System, which runs on the Sun platform, can instantly stop Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks launched by hackers and cyber criminals before they can penetrate the perimeter of the network.

The latest cyber crime wave that targets the networks of companies engaged in high-volume, low-value transactions such as online payment systems, online gambling sites, and web retailers, has escalated from simple hacking to outright blackmail. According to a recent article in London's Financial Times, cyber criminals are launching DDoS attacks at networks, and then demanding payment in exchange for a one-year abatement of attacks. There is little police can do to catch or prosecute these criminals, and while new laws are in the making, they will do little to ferret out perpetrators. For the foreseeable future, these cyber criminals are free to exploit known network vulnerabilities and the lack of perimeter security.

Sleuth9 is uniquely capable of detecting and automatically preventing these types of cyber attacks from entering or leaving a network by forming a new perimeter of defense against DoS, DDoS, Trojan horses, and self-propagating worms and viruses. Sleuth9 sits inline, 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, intelligently mitigating the attack while allowing good traffic through. In addition, Sleuth9's ForensiX Capture System arms IT professionals with the detailed data they need to identify the type and source of the attack.

"Criminals have discovered how important computer networks have become to business. As a result, they are using cyber attacks to take control over the network and demanding money to bring it back online," said Dan Jackson, DeepNines' president and COO. "Companies in financial services, healthcare and other industries where the network is absolutely critical must deploy a solution that can detect, prevent and track down the source of these criminal attacks."

Sleuth9 can be deployed at the perimeter of the network and in front of other likely targets such as web servers, mail servers, application servers, etc.

"Cyber attacks, whether of a criminal act or not, are a growing problem and companies need to make sure the technology infrastructure and security solutions they deploy can combat these complex threats," said Sanjay Sharma, market development, security at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "The combination of Sleuth9 from DeepNines and hardened Solaris, x86 and Linux operating systems from Sun provide you with the utmost security."

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.