Corporate Security Overview: 21-28 May 2002

A number of security companies send us their company press releases, which we republish in the press section of Help Net Security. This is an overview of interesting developments in the corporate security world during the past week.

21 May 2002 – Sophos has announced that TA Associates, one of the leading private equity and buyout firms in the United States, has completed a minority investment of L41 million (US$60 million) in the company. Two TA Associates senior executives have been appointed, one to the Sophos Plc board in the UK and the other to the board of Sophos Americas – which will also help drive the company’s continued activities in the US market.

Dr. Peter Lammer, co-founder and joint CEO of Sophos said: “We decided to partner with TA because of its deep software investment experience, extensive network of contacts and expertise in helping companies grow their business in the vital US market. TA’s investment should enable us to capitalise further on the worldwide growth in demand for anti-virus protection by helping us gain market share in the largest market in the world.”

Press release:

21 May 2002 – Secure Computing Corporation announced that it has acquired the intellectual property and customer base of FiPass, an authentication management and identity verification service, from FiPoint, Inc.

Willy Leichter, director, product marketing at Secure Computing – “FiPass’ managed authentication service extends two-factor authentication to the consumer market. This acquisition builds upon our SafeWord technology and increases our expertise in managed security services for the enterprise.”

Press release:

21 May 2002 – Trend Micro, Inc. launched its Enterprise Protection Strategy which manages the explosive costs of virus outbreaks, helps to quarantine viruses and prevent them from spreading, and improves the visibility of an attack and minimizes its impact on network operations. Trend Micro’s Enterprise Protection Strategy will provide businesses with a flexible architecture of services, products, centralized management, and faster access to TrendLabs for proactive outbreak management.

Steve Chang, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, Trend Micro said: “Our Enterprise Protection Strategy sets a new industry standard for antivirus outbreak lifecycle management today and into the future.”

Press release:

23 May 2002 – GFI’s Email Security Testing Zone, has launched three new email tests. The new tests enable administrators to find out free of charge if their network is protected against emails using the Iframe Remote and Object Codebase exploits, and to check whether their anti-virus software is working properly

Sandro Gauci, security engineer at GFI said: “GFI’s Email Security Testing Zone aims to help administrators keep abreast of the latest email threats and ensure that their networks are protected against them.”

Press release:

23 May 2002 – Neurotechnologija Ltd. announced the release of FingerCell EDK, a complete biometric fingerprint solution for embedded devices. A breakthrough in Embedded Development Kits (EDKs), FingerCell EDK not only enables rapid development of embedded fingerprint identification for doors, gates, computers, and other security-sensitive applications, but also can match 500 fingerprints per second, making it one of the fastest embedded ID systems on the market.

Algimantas Malickas, Ph.D., director and chief executive officer of Neurotechnologija Ltd. said: “Developing a superior embedded biometric identification system is a long and expensive undertaking. Our FingerCell EDK greatly shortens the process.”

Press release:

23 May 2002 – Kaspersky Labs has assigned the European Business Development company MediaGold the task to enhance Kaspersky Labs’ presence and to increase market share for its line of boxed software products in the European retail market. The agreement is effective immediately and will first concentrate on German speaking territories, the UK and Spain.

Natalya Kaspersky, Kaspersky Labs’ CEO said: “We are very pleased to be working with MediaGold. Combining efforts with such a highly professional company gives us a unique opportunity to attract new business partners, enhance the effectiveness of our partner network and more actively promote our software products.”

Press release:

27 May 2002 – Sophos announced the launch of Enterprise Manager, the first product in the next generation of Sophos Anti-Virus administration tools. Enterprise Manager provides automatic distribution of the very latest virus protection updates and Sophos applications as well as offering on-demand updates.

Mark Laister, product manager at Sophos said: “Enterprise Manager can be installed and configured in minutes. It builds on, rather than replaces, existing anti-virus procedures, and – even though it can be set up to operate entirely automatically – it does not need dedicated hardware or database servers. Best of all, it does not require every computer in a network to update ‘live’ from an external website. This is a scaleable solution which does not require users or administrators to click anything.”

Press release:

Don't miss