SurfControl Announces Breakthrough in Automated Categorization

April 2, 2007; 03:58 AM
SurfControl (LSE:SRF), a leading provider of global on-demand, network and endpoint IT security solutions today announced breakthrough results in automated web categorization as part of its ongoing focus on technology and cost leadership.

Using proprietary technology, SurfControl’s Advanced Threat Intelligence and Threat Data Systems Engineering teams have thus far scanned 62.2% of the relevant internet, covering the entire .com and .net top level domains, and have 100% within sight.

“By automatically classifying over 40,000,000 domains so far, we have put an end to the arms race of ‘whose database is bigger’ and have made competitor claims irrelevant by comparison,” said Max Rayner, executive vice-president of products and services at SurfControl. “We have always known that at least in information security, optimization matters more than size, and we are especially proud of sending to our customers the most relevant database for today’s emerging threats.”

Leveraging a variety of recently developed technologies, SurfControl has automated classification of domains with confidence levels over 94% at a 4% margin, including added-value information such as GeoIP data and dynamic change in domain status at even greater accuracies.

“This will allow our global team of Threat Experts to focus their in-depth site analysis on URLs where human judgment is needed to achieve greater certainty and complete the circle,” said Rayner. “This research also confirmed the dynamism of the internet threatscape and why customers need SurfControl’s raised levels of protection.”

In just the segments selected for the initial 3.5 months of the project:

• An estimated 1,090,436 ‘Parked’ domains moved to ‘Live’
• An estimated 778,594 ‘Parked’ domains no longer exist on the internet
• An estimated 3,880,998 ‘Unresolvable’ domains no longer exist
• An estimated 1,587,993 ‘Unresolvable’ domains moved to ‘Parked’
• An estimated 705,111 ‘Unresolvable’ domains went ‘Live’

Among other upcoming benefits, SurfControl noted the following:

• Ability to query high confidence categories looking for any database omissions
• Faster and broader knowledge of Parked and Live domains allowing dynamic tracking of the volatility of the Internet while enhancing effectiveness, accuracy and protection for our customers
• Use of GeoIP information for automatic threat map creation
• Automatic flagging of legacy categorizations that may need to be revisited
• Monitoring daily changes in Top Level Domain zone files for discovery of new domains the day they become live
• Ability to categorize the most relevant customer sites, submitted daily from our global customer base.

About SurfControl

SurfControl provides a portfolio of security solutions to protect our customers from Internet threats, deliver business and regulatory compliance, and enable business continuity. SurfControl believes that security should be treated as a science, delivering protection at multiple points -- "in the cloud" with on-demand security services, on the network with software and appliances, and on the desktop and mobile client. All of SurfControl's solutions for Web, e-mail and endpoint security are backed by industry-leading threat detection technologies, delivered by SurfControl's Global Threat Experts who work 24/7 to provide customers with dynamic zero-day protection. The company protects more than 16 million users and over 25,000 customers worldwide, and employs more than 600 people in offices across Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Pacific. For further information and news on SurfControl, please visit www.surfcontrol.com.