Press Releases
EXPLOIT PREVENTION LABS NAMED FINALIST FOR “MOST INNOVATIVE NEW COMPANY” AT RSA SECURITY CONFERENCE 2007
LinkScanner Developer One of Only Ten Startups Profiled at RSA’s Innovation Station Pavilion
January 22, 2006 – Atlanta, GA and San Francisco, CA – Exploit Prevention Labs (http://www.explabs.com), a leading developer of safe surfing software that protects against phishing, social engineering, and other web-based exploits, today announced its selection as one of ten finalists in the 2007 “Most Innovative New Company” awards at the RSA Security Conference. As a finalist, Exploit Prevention Labs will showcase its LinkScanner technology in the Innovation Station exhibit at booth 1348 at the RSA Security Conference (February 5-9 2007 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco).
Exploit Prevention Labs was selected from among other security startups by a judging panel that included venture capitalists, chief security officers, and industry press and analysts. The panel evaluated each entrant based on the market potential for the company’s products, the significance of the company’s technology innovation, the quality of the management team, and the overall commercial viability of the company.
Exploit Prevention Labs will compete in a final bakeoff at the RSA Conference on Tuesday February 6 between noon and 1:30pm, when each finalist will make a five-minute pitch to the judging panel. First, second, and third place awards will be made based on market impact, technology significance, management quality, and professionalism of presentation. The judging panel includes Asheem Chandna of Greylock Partners, Herbert H. Thompson of Security Innovation, Ted Schlein of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Renee Guttmann-Stark of Time Inc., and Michael Barrett of PayPal.
Exploit Prevention Labs Founded by Security Industry Pioneers
Exploit Prevention Labs (XPL) was co-founded in 2005 by Bob Bales, who previously co-founded anti-spyware pioneer PestPatrol (acquired by Computer Associates in 2004) and Roger Thompson, a long time malware researcher, who realized that the profile of the traditional cyber criminal was changing. Thompson developed the company’s patent-pending technology, and XPL shipped its first products in May 2005.
In the past, malware writers were motivated by sadistic thrills and bragging rights. Today, a new breed of cybercriminal, motivated by profit, is using sophisticated zero-day exploits and social engineering tactics to steal bank account usernames, passwords and other valuable personally-identifiable information. These criminals trade in the malware code used to hack into trusted web sites and plant exploits, which then infect innocent site visitors’ systems through drive-by downloads that take advantage of vulnerabilities in unpatched Windows PCs.
Emerging Safe Surfing Category Likely a Billion Dollar Market Opportunity
XPL’s founders believe the emerging category of safe-surfing software is poised to become a billion-dollar market. This expectation is based on the high perceived value of protecting systems against web-based threats; industry analyst firm IDC anticipates that the value of the web security marketplace overall will grow from $1.4 billion in 2005, the last year for which figures are available, to $2.8 billion in 2009.
Unlike traditional malware, web-based exploits and crimeware have the potential to cost consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in losses. With the dramatic rise of web-based exploits over the last couple years, computer users are questioning the safety of web sites; the future of ecommerce depends on users regaining trust and confidence in the web, and this is the benefit XPL delivers.
Why Traditional Security Solutions are Inadequate Against the Crimeware Threat
Conventional anti-virus and anti-spyware applications cannot detect drive-by downloads until after the malware hits the hard drive and the damage has been done. Such downloads also bypass firewall defenses because they are accessed via the browser’s trusted Port 80 connection. Traditional site-scanning products rely on out-dated databases of information that are no match for today’s dynamic web threats.
XPL Delivers a Breakthrough in the Battle against Crimeware
The innovative technology behind XPL’s LinkScanner family of safe-surfing software addresses the limitations of conventional security solutions in three ways. First, a patent-pending automated network of hunting pots constantly scans the web for emerging exploits. Second, the LinkScanner client software scans inbound traffic passing through the browser, using dynamically-gathered data to block malicious sites and prevent malware from entering the user’s computer. Third, LinkScanner constantly feeds automated reports of malsite encounters from thousands of users back into its exploit research networks. This intelligence is used to update the defenses for the entire community of LinkScanner users.
About the LinkScanner Family of Safe Surfing Software
The LinkScanner family of safe surfing products is designed to protect Internet users against malicious web sites, phishing, social engineering and other web-based exploits. XPL markets LinkScanner direct to customers via online distribution, and via technology licensing and bundling agreements with complementary software vendors.
LinkScanner Pro (free 30-day evaluation: http://www.explabs.com/products/lspro_trial.asp ), a $29.95 lightweight client application, provides real-time, automatic protection against malicious web sites, drive-by downloads, and other crimeware exploits.
LinkScanner Lite (http://www.explabs.com/products/lslite.asp ) is a free application that provides real-time scanning of Google, MSN and Yahoo search results for web-based threats, as well as on-demand scanning of individual links. Support for Firefox and other browsers and search engines is in development.
LinkScanner Online (http://linkscanner.explabs.com) is a free real-time online URL scanning service that lets users know whether any individual site they intend to visit has been poisoned by an exploit. LinkScanner Online supports all major web browsers and is freely available for incorporation into third-party websites. Interested webmasters can request the code through Exploit Prevention Labs’ website at http://www.explabs.com/LinkScanner/MyLinkScanner/
Exploit Prevention Labs also offers a Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable third-party vendors to easily incorporate the LinkScanner safe surfing technology into their own applications.
About Exploit Prevention Labs
Founded by information security veterans Bob Bales and Roger Thompson in 2005, Exploit Prevention Labs develops the LinkScanner family of safe surfing software and services. LinkScanner Pro, LinkScanner Lite and LinkScanner Online provide patent-pending protection against malicious web sites and web-based exploits during the critical risk window between the announcement of a security vulnerability and the provision of a patch by the vendor. More information about Exploit Prevention Labs and LinkScanner may be found on the company’s website at http://www.explabs.com.
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Media Contact:
Tim Shisler /
Julie Parayno
Dovetail Public Relations
408.395.3600
xpl@dovetailpr.com |
