Symbiot Releases OpenSIMS; World's First Open Source Solution for Security Infrastructure Management and Collaborative Risk Metrics

Business Wire, August 3, 2004

AUSTIN, Texas -- Symbiot, Inc., an emerging leader in the Intelligent Security Infrastructure Management Systems (iSIMS) marketplace, today announced the general availability of OpenSIMS, the world's first open source solution for security infrastructure management and collaborative risk metric exchange.

Security infrastructure management is one of the most complex issues facing today's information security managers. The goal of the OpenSIMS project is to remove the current barriers to entry in deploying solutions for this critical issue, and support the open source community in building a common set of solutions for improving information security management as a whole.

"OpenSIMS revolutionizes information security by establishing an open source foundation for security infrastructure management and the collaborative exchange of security risk metrics," said David Holtzman, former CTO of Network Solutions and president of GlobalPOV. "It is positioned to be to information security management what the Apache web server is to the Internet."

Unique in the security marketplace, OpenSIMS represents a foundational shift in security technology by creating an open source framework which emphasizes a highly extensible, platform-independent approach for integrating existing systems. Based on Java and XML, OpenSIMS is built on top of the industry-leading open source projects provided by the Apache Software Foundation and features a visualization console created using Macromedia's Flash technology.

"We are focused on fostering the emerging SIMS marketplace and ensuring that accountability and collaboration are conducted in the spirit of open source and open standards," said Mike W. Erwin, president of Symbiot, Inc. "Symbiot hopes that the OpenSIMS project will serve to inspire other leading companies in the security marketplace to embrace the open source community and improve information security management systems by working together."

OpenSIMS is currently available for download at www.opensims.org, and supports multiple operating systems including Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Apple Computer's Mac OS X, and FreeBSD, with a port for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2005 Release Candidate currently under development. OpenSIMS has been made available by Symbiot under the terms and conditions of the Apache Software Foundation's 2.0 license agreement with a planned proposal to migrate the project into the Apache Software Foundation's incubator.

About OpenSIMS

OpenSIMS (www.opensims.org) ties together the open source tools used for security management into a common infrastructure. The framework emphasizes a highly extensible, platform-independent approach for integrating existing systems, based on Java code, XML data source, and Flash visualizations. It also provides the means for networks to make use of collaborative risk metrics.

About Symbiot

Symbiot(R) (www.symbiot.com) is an emerging leader in the Intelligent Security Infrastructure Management Systems (iSIMS) marketplace. Symbiot's iSIMS (intelligent SIMS) analyzes network patterns to provide real-time, predictive tools for managing and responding to security events. Symbiot's iSIMS software interoperates with existing firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and intrusion prevention systems.