Venrock Associates and Trellis Management Co. invest in Haystack Labs' Website security technology

Business Wire, June 4, 1996

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 4, 1996--Haystack Labs Inc., the leader in active security tools for open systems, Tuesday announced it has obtained $2.2 million in investment funds from Venrock Associates and Trellis Management Co.

The financing will allow Haystack Labs to launch WebStalker(TM), its latest security tool for the World Wide Web, as well as expand its sales, customer support and marketing efforts. The majority of funding was provided by Venrock Associates, the Rockefeller family venture capital arm based in New York and Palo Alto, Calif., with a portion of the outside investment from Trellis Management Co., a Texas-based venture organization.

"Network security is an exploding market. Haystack Labs' WebStalker technology should be an integral part of every network manager's security portfolio," said Ray Rothrock, general partner of Venrock Associates. "Venrock and Trellis are very pleased to be Haystack Labs' partner in this very exciting enterprise."

"As corporate budgets for Internet and Intranet projects continue to increase, so will the need to protect their investment," said H. Leland Murphy, chairman of Trellis Management Co. "The company has pioneered a 'smart' security technology that goes beyond firewalls to provide a new and better kind of information protection -- a perfect fit for the communication systems of tomorrow."

"These venture partners add their own credibility and business expertise to our technical expertise," said Steve Smaha, Haystack Labs' founder and chief executive officer. "We're looking forward to working together to bring this new product to market."

Available immediately, WebStalker is an easy-to-use software product that provides continuous security monitoring in real-time, with automated retaliation measures for WWW sites on both corporate Intranets and the Internet. With the HTML interface familiar to Web users, WebStalker uses an interview technique to design and implement a security policy for the Web site.

Because WebStalker dynamically patrols for all suspicious activities on the Web server itself, it provides better protection than the traditional, passive firewall which is designed only to prevent dangerous connections from getting to the site. WebStalker is the latest addition to Haystack Labs' complete line of active security products for corporations and government agencies with sensitive data protection needs.

Haystack Labs, founded in 1989 by Steve Smaha, has been designing and fielding computer and network intrusion detection systems since 1987. The company's first commercial product, Stalker(R), is based on Haystack Labs' third generation patent-pending technology and a large database of known attacks and misuses, continually updated as new computer security problems arise.

Recently, Stalker was voted "Best Unix Security Product" by a blue ribbon panel of information security experts at the Information Security Awards Event sponsored by the MIS Training Institute, Ernst & Young, Coopers & Lybrand, and "InfoSecurity News".

Last November, in a partnership with Network Systems Corp., a StorageTek company, Haystack Labs brought its dynamic intrusion-detection technology to the TCP/IP environment when it introduced NetStalker(TM), real-time break-in detection and response software that works with NSC security routers.

Haystack Labs' customers include intelligence agencies, military sites, banks, and financial organizations in several countries. The company also maintains close connections with the Internet CERT team, the FBI, Unix vendors, and university research groups.

For more information about WebStalker and Haystack Labs, visit http://www.haystack.com or send email to sales@haystack.com. Information about Venrock Associates can be found at http://www.venrock.com.

CONTACT: Haystack Labs Inc.

Brita Womack, 615/646-6017 (Marketing)

marketing@haystack.com

or

Jessica Winslow, 512/918-1265 (Business)

sales@haystack.com