FireEye Brings Anti-Botnet Protection to Higher Ed

Business Wire, May 5, 2008

FireEye and UC Berkeley to Co-Present at the EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference

MILPITAS, Calif. -- FireEye, Inc., the leader in global anti-botnet protection, continues its anti-botnet offensive, helping educational institutions overcome their unique challenges to rid campus networks of stealth malware and botnets. In support of this effort, chief investigator Dr. Michael J. Staggs will co-present at the EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference, Security 2008, being held May 4-6, 2008 in Arlington, Va. He will be joined by FireEye customer Fred Archibald, network manager, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) for the University of California at Berkeley in a discussion entitled "FireEye, Inc. and UC Berkeley: Combating Stealth Malware and Botnets in Higher Education."

Educational institutions face a particular set of challenges in fighting stealth malware and botnet infiltration. University IT departments must walk the fine line between enabling a highly collaborative, non-restrictive environment and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and computing resources. Trends toward mobility, increasing Web traffic and the rising popularity of e-commerce, search and social networking applications have all impacted university security and compounded this challenge.

It is increasingly difficult for university IT departments to manage security for all end points as more and more students, faculty and staff utilize mobile devices on a collection of campus networks, home networks and hot spots. Additionally, administrators are challenged to make sense of the explosion of intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts, a critical yet daunting task given the fact that hackers are infiltrating university networks to build botnet command and control servers and exploiting student Web surfing habits for botnet propagation.

"Today's universities struggle to maintain the open and collaborative environment necessary for research and learning while at the same time fending off increasingly sophisticated threats," said Ashar Aziz, founder and CEO, FireEye, Inc. "FireEye's Botwall[TM] solutions help higher ed institutions strengthen security across wireless and LAN networks, streamline and automate analysis to manage the constant barrage of IDS alerts, and collect crucial malware and botnet intelligence to detect and eliminate infiltration while enabling network managers and users alike to be more effective."

At Security 2008, Dr. Staggs and Archibald will discuss the particular challenges faced by UC Berkeley's EECS department in pursuing stronger security for its mobile users as well as the FireEye implementation selected to address key requirements of the University. The discussion will include an overview of today's threat landscape along with current countermeasures and university IT security trends. The session, "FireEye, Inc. and UC Berkeley: Combating Stealth Malware and Botnets in Higher Education," will be held from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, May 6 at The Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va.

Sponsored by the EDUCAUSE & Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force, the 2008 Security Professionals Conference annual meeting brings together information security professionals, IT staff, and others from across the higher education community. The Security 2008 conference will include keynote speakers, pre and post conference seminars, corporate displays, and sessions that address technical solutions, security policies and procedures, and management issues, including security training and awareness. More information can be found at http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=317.

About the FireEye Botwall[TM] Solution

In September 2007, FireEye launched the FireEye Botwall Network service and introduced new models in the FireEye Botwall security appliance family to great market receptivity and customer adoption. Built from the ground up to combat botnet threats, the FireEye Botwall Network is a globally deployed botnet discovery and analysis service offering which provides subscribers with the most current botnet intelligence to complement on-premise anti-botnet security appliances. It catalogs and disseminates botnet characteristics derived from malware analyses which are conducted by interconnected networks of FireEye Botwall appliances selectively deployed at service providers around the world. FireEye's solution offers the industry's first complete global and local anti-botnet protection.

About FireEye, Inc.

FireEye, Inc. is the leader in anti-botnet protection, enabling organizations to protect critical intellectual property, computing resources, and network infrastructure against bot infiltration. Today's most damaging attacks originate from and through highly organized botnets, or networks of remotely controlled, compromised machines. FireEye delivers a complete solution that is designed from the ground up to detect and protect organizations from botnets through global and local intelligence and analysis. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and JAFCO. For more information, contact (408) 321-6300 or email: info@fireeye.com. Visit us at www.FireEye.com.