Press Releases

BT ETHICAL HACKING CENTER TESTING CONFIRMS FN’S EXTENDED END-2-END REVERSE SANDBOXING TECHNOLOGY STOPS ALL COMMON DESKTOP END-USER COMPUTER ATTACKS

Feb 03, 2011

The Third in a Series of Independent Tests Demonstrates the Effectiveness of Federated Networks’  Extended End-2-End Sandboxing Cyber Security Technology Against Spyware and Other Malicious Desktop Threats

TORONTO, Ontario “February 3, 2011″ Federated Networks (FN) today announced that the BT Ethical Hacking Center was unable to compromise end users protected by Federated Networks’ FN Connect Secure Client Agent utilizing the company’s proprietary extended end-2-end reverse sandboxing technology. During a recent round of testing, ethical hackers failed to log keystrokes, capture screens or successfully execute man-in-the-browser and a variety of other attacks against clients running the Federated Networks software.

Earlier testing by BT validated the efficacy of the FN ASL protocol, which thwarts common network vulnerabilities, such as phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks. BT also validated that the FN Connect Secure Web Application Gateway eliminates common security vulnerabilities inherent in web applications, such as the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) 2010 Top 10 web-based vulnerabilities.

To validate the effectiveness of its new technology, FN provided BT with a blank slate in selecting the “best-of-the-best” known malware attacks and tools, augmented for completeness and comparison with certain other attack tools utilized to assess competitors solutions. None of the hacking tools or methods were able to compromise user data.

“Given that spyware is currently the most potent and pervasive threat to cyber-security, the fact that BT has validated that there are no known generic threats or tools that can compromise FN protected user data is obviously a very important outcome in the war on identity, data and/or content theft,” said David Lowenstein, CEO of Federated Networks. “Simply put, our solution provably mitigates all current, best-of-breed keyloggers, screen capture and man-in-the-browser threats. In addition, the same technology that protects login and e-commerce also protects all of a user’s or company’s communications, including e-mail, IM and social networking applications.”

To achieve its results, FN has taken a radically different approach whereby FN’s technology effectively immunizes a user’s system from the payloads or effects of identity, data or content theft-oriented malware. More specifically, FN’s Acute Threat Model not only assumes that some form of malware will make its way onto a user’s computer, but rather that all of the most potent variants of known malware are on the computer at once, operated simultaneously and/or combinatorially by an expert. Additionally, FN’s Acute Threat Model assumes that the end user’s operating system passwords have been compromised; the operating system, browser and other software is outdated; up-to-date security software patches are absent; and the security settings are at their most permissive levels. Importantly, the FN Connect Secure solution ensures that even under these extreme conditions, user data and content is kept secure.

Deeply and comprehensively addressing root problems instead of applying band-aids to symptoms is the core philosophy behind FN’s immunization approach. FN more technically describes its new technology as “extended end-to-end reverse sandboxing.” “Extended end-to-end” refers to FN’s extension of the endpoint to include the Human Computer Interface (HCI), namely peripherals such as a keyboard, mouse and monitor etc. used to communicate with software systems.

Within security software, “sandboxing” is a method of separating the execution of untrusted programs from the rest of a machine. FN ensures that all FN components only communicate with other/secure FN components, which reduces the transitive trust and reliance of the FN architecture on general system components such as operating systems and browsers that are well known to have weak security properties. In addition, end-user security settings, configurations and even the system’s patching status do not affect FN’s ability to protect user data.

“It is well understood within the security community that existing solutions, particularly those provided by the anti-vendors, fall appallingly short of providing comprehensive threat mitigation against increasingly sophisticated malware,” said Risu Na, Chief Technology Officer at Federated Networks. “It’s pretty clear that the bad guys are better at getting malware onto your computer than the anti-vendors are at keeping it off. The sterilization approach didn’t work for Howard Hughes and its not working in cyber-security either. In short, we believe that immunizing user’s systems against malware payloads through extended end-to-end reverse sandboxing Is a much better approach and one that empirically is showing strong results.”

Detailed reports outlining each of the three testing sequences performed by BT, including the current FN client/desktop security testing as well as the previous testing of the FN Connect Secure Web Application Gateway and the FN ASL protocol, are available here. Also available on the Federated Networks website is more technical information about the company’s products, solutions and technology.

The FN Connect Secure Client is a key part of The FN Connect Securelв„ў Framework, which provides the foundational infrastructure for securing planned Internet initiatives, such as secure e-statements and e-billing, e-voting, e-currency and e-health applications. Additionally, the company’s technologies significantly strengthen military mission critical command and control IT infrastructure including solving several of the U.S. military’s most challenging cyber-security issues, as outlined by the INFOSEC Research Council’s “Hard Problems List.”

About Federated Networks

Federated Networks enables consumers, corporations and government to Connect Securelyв„ў to all things digital. Coded to the mission critical secure coding and quality specifications of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) plane and the NASA space shuttle, respectively, the FN Connect Securelyв„ў Architecture seamlessly and comprehensively protects content and communications against networked software’s most pervasive threat vectors. Federated Networks’ breakthrough cloud native, zero-knowledge protocol guards against identity theft and data compromise of any kind, whether it resides on social networks or secure servers. Establishing the new standard for cyber confidence, Federated Networks enables user centric control of the security and access rights of personal information and data. Founded in 2005, Federated Networks is privately held and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. For more information please visit http://www.federatednetworks.com.

About BT Managed Security Solutions Group

As the authority on enterprise security, BT’s Managed Security Solutions Group combines managed security services portfolio with an Ethical Hacking Center of Excellence, offering its customers the only Human Computer Interface extended end-to-end security solutions in the industry. BT has been offering security services to the Fortune 1000 since 1991 and has performed thousands of Ethical Hacking assignments on a variety of systems and applications, including network infrastructure, online banking and trading and ecommerce. BT’s Ethical Hacking (EH) services enable customers to protect their networks, information assets, and corporate reputations by identifying vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Contacts:

David Lowenstein, Federated Networks 905-361-2834 Dave@FederatedNetworks.com

Shweta Agarwal, Schwartz Communications 781-684-0770 federatednetworks@schwartz-pr.com