Symantec Completes The Acquisition of L-3 Network Security's Vulnerability Assessment and Security Consulting Business

Business Wire, March 9, 2000

Business Editors/High-tech Writers

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 9, 2000

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced it completed the acquisition of the vulnerability assessment and security consulting business of L-3 Network Security.

The acquisition has received clearance from the Department of Justice for the Hart Scott Rodino anti-trust filing.

Symantec announced, on Feb. 14, 2000, a definitive agreement to acquire the vulnerability assessment and security consulting business of L-3 Network Security, a majority owned subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp., for a one-time cash payment of $20 million.

With the completion of the acquisition, Symantec will employ the security experts of L-3 Network Security. Members of the L-3 Network Security team who will join Symantec have helped design and build the world's largest deployed intrusion detection system, the world's largest virtual private network and the world's first information risk management software. Additionally, other team members crafted and implemented national security and technology policies in the United States and the United Kingdom and founded the Defense Technology Security Administration and served as its first director.

Symantec will also begin the integration of L-3 Network Security's vulnerability assessment products, Retriever(TM) and Expert(TM), into its best of breed security offering. Some of the world's largest organizations use these products which provide a foundation to quickly and effectively design, implement and manage network security policies and further protect a company's content. Together these solutions determine, monitor and enforce precise security levels and practices.

"By combining one of the most experienced teams of security consultants and engineers in the industry with our content security experts, Symantec can provide its customers a more robust offering of best-of-breed security solutions," said John W. Thompson, chairman, CEO and president of Symantec Corporation. "Symantec will also build on L-3 Network Security's reseller relationships, providing extensive training, resources and ongoing sales support to ensure our reseller partners are well-equipped to deliver superior cross-platform security solutions that meet our customers' growing security needs."

"Effective systems security is critical to the unmatched market integrity that is the hallmark of the Chicago Chicago Board of Trade," said Tom Greco, Information Security Manager at the CBOT. "We look forward to working with the new Symantec/L-3 Network Security team to ensure we continue to have the best security technology in the business."

The acquisition of L-3 Network Security's business is Symantec's most recent Internet security acquisition. Symantec also recently acquired URLab's I-Gear and Mail-Gear businesses for email and Internet content filtering and WRQ's AtGuard personal firewall.

About Symantec

Symantec, a world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content security solutions to individuals and companies. The company is a leading provider of anti-virus protection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, and mobile code detection technologies to enterprise customers. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in more than 24 countries.

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FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above. Among these are the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments, the competitive environment in the software industry, dependence on other products, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems, and the importance of new Symantec products. Additional information concerning those and other factors is contained in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 2, 1999 and all quarterly reports filed subsequent to such date.