Pinkerton Academy Deploys Top Layer Networks IPS 5500 Intrusion Prevention System to Expel Cyber Threats; IPS 5500's Automatic- Blocking, Reporting and Easy-to-Use Device Management Enhance Academy's Proactive Security Strategy

Business Wire, Jan 3, 2006

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. -- Top Layer Networks, the global leader for high performance intrusion prevention solutions, today announced that Pinkerton Academy of Derry, New Hampshire, has deployed its IPS 5500 to block cyber threats in real-time and protect its campus-wide network. FIT Communications, a Top Layer reseller, assisted in the deal.

Pinkerton Academy, established in 1814, is the nation's largest independent academy, serving 3,400 high school students in grades 9-12, with 420 full- and part-time faculty and staff. The campus consists of 15 buildings connected by fiber, and has more than 1,000 computers connected to the campus network. As part of its proactive approach to security, Pinkerton Academy has deployed Top Layer's IPS 5500 to provide real-time intrusion prevention. With more than 3,500 students, faculty and administration accessing the network daily, Pinkerton Academy's Information Technology Director, Mr. Rod Rodriguez wanted a proactive solution that would supplement its existing firewall, antivirus and antispam infrastructure.

"With so many students exploring the Internet, we need to understand what they are downloading and unleashing onto our network -- we wanted another set of eyes, and after extensive research we found that Top Layer's IPS 5500 provides the visibility and added protection we needed," said Rod Rodriguez. "In addition, the IPS 5500 provides automatic blocking of cyber threats - something our internal network sniffers can't do, but which was a crucial component to our proactive approach to security."

In addition to the protection from threats Top Layer provides Pinkerton Academy, the IPS 5500 also produces insightful reports that will help Mr. Rodriguez illustrate to the administration and Board of Trustees the value that the IPS 5500 purchase brings to the institution. The IPS 5500 has already returned immediate value - stopping the Netsky virus at the gateway even before it had a chance to be blocked by Pinkerton Academy's anti virus solution thus adding double the protection to the network, and also automatically blocking spyware sites that students were frequenting.

"Educational institutions such as Pinkerton Academy help mold young minds and provide the experiences for them to acquire the skills, values, behaviors, and knowledge that are essential for a successful role in society," said Peter Rendall, president and CEO of Top Layer Networks. "With the growing use of the Internet in education and the access to information and internal systems it opens, security is of the utmost importance. The IPS 5500 provides the three dimensional protection from undesired access, malicious content and rate-based attacks that Pinkerton needs to ensure its students, faculty and staff, and systems are adequately protected from the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats that lurk throughout the Internet."

About the Top Layer IPS 5500

The IPS 5500 family of products offers the strongest levels of network protection, performance and reliability on the market today. By combining stateful firewall, content-based IPS/IDS, and attack mitigation algorithms, the IPS 5500 is the only solution that provides Three Dimensional Protection (3DP) against undesired access, malicious content and rate-based attacks. Top Layer's architecture enables the IPS 5500 to protect enterprises and service providers from sophisticated, hybrid attacks in real-time while enabling the highest throughput of legitimate traffic.

The IPS 5500 remains the only IPS to receive double NSS Lab Approval for both rate-based and content-based IPS protection. It has also won approval from industry publications such as Information Security Magazine, SC Magazine, Computer Reseller News, among others.

To learn more about the IPS 5500, visit www.toplayer.com or call 1-508-870-1300.

About Top Layer Networks

Top Layer Networks is dedicated to its role as the leading global provider of Network Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), developing and bringing to market network security infrastructure solutions that help commercial and government organizations protect their critical on-line assets from the losses and risks associated with cyber threats. Its family of IPS appliances is designed with "Three Dimensional Protection" that provides the most advanced protection capabilities against known and unknown attacks at the highest tested performance rates. Top Layer Networks is headquartered in Massachusetts, USA with sales and support presence in Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.