Press Release - For Immediate Release
IronPort Systems Introduces Breakthrough Technology -Again
Technology Leader Introduces Second Generation Virus Outbreak Filters, Secure Bounce Solution and Enterprise Management Tools
SAN BRUNO, Calif. - October 18, 2005 -IronPort Systems Inc., the leader in email security, today announced the availability of the newest version of IronPort's high performance operating system AsyncOStm version 4.5, the largest software release in the company's five-year history. The new software includes second generation technology for stopping virus outbreaks, innovative new technology for handling bounce messages, and carrier-grade technology for managing global system deployments. The features and functionality of IronPort technology provide organizations unmatched virus protection, unprecedented ease of use and reduced total cost of ownership.
IronPort's Proven Virus Outbreak Filters are Even More Effective
IronPort started an industry trend when it first introduced Virus Outbreak Filterstm in June 2004. IronPort's Virus Outbreak Filters analyze global traffic patterns to identify anomalies and then quarantine potential outbreaks until the traditional anti-virus signatures are updated. This breakthrough technology has provided protection an average of 13.6 hours ahead of signature availability for more than 100 major outbreaks. This translates into approximately 5 million infected messages stopped by IronPort's Virus Outbreak Filters, which would have otherwise infected desktops, saving IronPort customers an estimated $100M dollars in cleanup costs.
"Virus Outbreak Filters is one of the most valuable but simple email protection inventions in recent memory," said Peter Christy, Internet Research Group. "With essentially all security solutions the goal is to increase effectiveness while eliminating false positives. Because email can be queued and because a delay in email delivery is highly acceptable (whereas identifying a valuable attachment as a virus and incorrectly blocking it is not), Virus Outbreak Filter greatly extend the efficacy of virus protection by enabling the temporary and transparent quarantining of suspicious content long before a rock-solid signature exists. When stopping viruses, having the advantage of acting hours earlier can translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in saved clean-up costs. The consistently fast response of IronPort Outbreak Filters - time before the signature is available -- is easy to measure and the improvement in the customer's security is both real and self-evident."
"Our technology has such a strong value proposition that many companies have attempted to emulate it using traditional spam filter heuristics and technologies, however virus writers often thwart these less sophisticated defenses by creating viruses that change as they spread—fooling a filter that is simply looking for a pattern it has seen before," said Tom Gillis, Senior Vice President, Marketing at IronPort Systems. "Only the IronPort solution includes a team of trained technicians in a 24x7 Threat Operations Center (TOC) that analyze traffic patterns from all over the globe, identifying and characterizing polymorphic viruses as they emerge."
All New Threat Operations Center Facility
In conjunction with this announcement, IronPort is announcing an all-new Threat Operations Center (TOC) facility in San Bruno, California, with state of the art tools to produce alerts and rules designed to stay one step ahead of virus writers. The IronPort TOC leverages the world's largest traffic monitoring network, SenderBase.org, which derives sender data from more than 100,000 Internet points.
Tightly integrated with the TOC, IronPort's Virus Outbreak Filters 2.0 uses an ingenious dynamic quarantine system. Constantly monitoring Internet traffic patterns with SenderBase, the dynamic quarantine automatically and intelligently captures messages that appear to be part of a new outbreak by using broad outbreak detection rules. Immediately after the outbreak is detected, technicians at the TOC begin developing more refined rules as the outbreak unfolds in order to isolate the origin of the virus. Each time a new rule is issued, the quarantine is re-scanned, releasing messages that do not match the outbreak anomaly. This powerful, dynamic system takes full advantage of both the human supervision provided by the TOC staff and IronPort's patent-pending technology, while placing no burden on local system administrators - outbreak protection is fully automated and remotely managed by IronPort's TOC staff.
Secure Bounce Management Protects Against Directory Harvest and Denial of Service Attacks
Bounce messages are becoming the single biggest headache for system administrators. Misdirected bounces consume resources, plug system mail queues, and can result in directory harvest and denial of service attacks or blacklisting. An easy solution to misdirected bounce messages would be to issue bounces during the SMTP conversation, but this would expose the corporate directory and allow spammers to shower end users with unwanted spam messages.
IronPort has innovated again with a Secure Bounce Management System that will issue a conversational bounce to trusted senders but will not issue a bounce to untrustworthy senders. The system keeps track of the number of invalid addresses from a given sender and will stop issuing bounces if a sender appears to be guessing at legitimate addresses. These directory attacks have become so sophisticated that spammers can launch an attack from a network of infected "zombie" computers where each zombie attempts one address. Additionally, IronPort's TOC and Virus Outbreak Filters provide additional protection by detecting and stopping these zombie directory attacks.
Global System Management for the Largest Messaging Infrastructures
IronPort appliances protect the largest and most sophisticated networks, including 8 of the 10 largest ISPs and 20% of the largest enterprises in the world. These large-scale deployments demand sophisticated management tools. With the introduction of AsyncOS 4.5, IronPort has greatly enhanced its management capability. Carrier-grade centralized management lets any organization, including the largest ISPs and enterprises, log in to any one of their systems to control any and all of their systems globally. IronPort's custom SNMP reporting package provides seamless integration with third-party network monitoring systems. Additionally, an enhanced and expanded graphical web interface makes it easier than ever to provide the highest levels of security for the largest enterprises.
About IronPort Systems
IronPort Systems is the leading email security provider for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. The company has developed a family of email security appliances, the IronPort C-Series™, that offer breakthrough performance, unprecedented ease of use and reduced total cost of ownership. IronPort is driving new standards and providing innovative products for those faced with the monumental task of managing, protecting, and growing mission-critical email systems. For more information on IronPort products and services, visit: http://www.ironport.com/.
Press / Analysts
If you are a reporter or analyst and want more information on IronPort Systems please contact Liz Landis at (415) 828 4801 (mobile) or llandis@ironport.com.
