| |
      
|
 |
ARCHIVE 2004
CyberGuard's Webwasher Thwarts Today's Dangerous
Sober.I Attack
BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2004--A dangerous
mass-mailing worm that uses its own SMTP engine to spread itself
threatens to be a dreaded zero day attack. "Zero day"
refers to an exploit, either a worm or a virus, that arrives immediately
following or even before there is a public announcement of a vulnerability
in a computer system. Customers using the newest versions of Webwasher
Content Security Management (CSM), Antivirus or Content Protection
solutions from CyberGuard Corporation (Nasdaq:CGFW), a provider
of proven, intelligent, security solutions that protect business-critical
assets at global 2,000 organizations and government entities worldwide,
are protected from Sober.I infections through Webwasher's "proactive
filtering" capability.
"Many antivirus vendors do not yet recognize the new worm,
which is why proactive filtering is so critical," explained
Horst Joepen, president of CyberGuard's Webwasher division. "Traditional
antivirus technology must first identify new viruses and worms
before they can develop and release protection, but proactive
filtering identifies anomalies so users can prevent infiltration
from brand-new worms and viruses in the first place."
The mass-mailing worm - W32.Sober.I -is a variant of the Sober
worm which caused worldwide havoc in early 2003. The worm arrives
as a .com, .bat, .scr, .pif or .zip attachment in e-mails with
various subject lines - in English or German - and various text
bodies in the e-mails. It also hides in innocent looking .doc-,
xls- and txt-files that are, in reality, executable attachments.
Sober.I propagates by sending itself from infected desktops as
a ZIP archive to addresses it gathers from the infected computer.
Webwasher's proactive content filtering recognizes and blocks
the corrupted format.
How Proactive Content Filtering Works
Similar to how medical researchers protect against new viruses
that spread throughout a population by first identifying the composition
of the virus and then developing an anti-virus, anti-virus security
vendors traditionally detect new viruses and develop protection
based on patterns in those viruses. The process from detection
to developing protection and making it available can take several
hours. Highly publicized worms such as Blaster, MyDoom and Bagel
infected computers worldwide in just a few hours. By contrast,
proactive technologies analyze Web and e-mail traffic looking
for certain abnormalities, objects or combination of objects and
code, thus protecting against worms and viruses whose patterns
are not yet known and preventing Zero Day attacks. Proactive filtering
technology in Webwasher version 5.1 protects against malicious
files and is part of Webwasher Antivirus and Webwasher Content
Protection products.
About CyberGuard Corporation
CyberGuard Corporation (Nasdaq:CGFW) provides proven, intelligent,
security solutions that protect business-critical information
assets of Global 2,000 companies and government entities worldwide.
The company's firewall/VPN, Total Stream Protection(TM), Global
Command Center(TM) and Webwasher(R) product suites comprise a
comprehensive, integrated security system, which offers highly
adaptive, scalable solutions that intelligently guard against
network intrusion and content-based vulnerabilities, detecting
and eliminating security threats in real-time for performance
optimization. CyberGuard has deployed more than 250,000 products
in companies around the world to maintain the health and integrity
of their enterprises. Headquartered near Boca Raton, Florida,
the company has branch offices and training centers around the
globe and can be located on the World Wide Web at http://www.cyberguard.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve
certain risks, uncertainties and factors, including without limitation,
those described in the Company's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission that may cause the Company's future actual
results to materially differ from the Company's current expectations.
The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking
statements.
CyberGuard(R) and Webwasher(R) are registered trademarks and
Total Stream Protection(TM) and Global Command Center(TM) are
trademarks of CyberGuard Corporation. All other trademarks are
property of their respective owners.
|
 |