West Coast Labs Completes Anti-Malware Testing, Issues Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification

PRESS RELEASE

Irvine, Calif. and Cardiff, UK, December 11, 2008 - West Coast Labs, part of the Haymarket Media Group and one of the world's leading independent test facilities for information security products and services, today announced the completion of its Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification in which 17 vendors successfully completed the rigors of product testing.

"With the unrelenting increase in malware attacks throughout the world, IS product and service providers must continually demonstrate to their customers the strength of their products and services to protect against existing and new malware threats," said Lysa Myers, director of research, West Coast Labs. "Attacks are becoming more complex and testing in real-world situations provides the most accurate assessment of a product's ability to protect during times of need. The Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification process replicates a corporate environment such that it ensures a clear understanding of a product's strengths and vulnerabilities."

Monitoring Shows US Leads as Top Originator of Malware Attacks Over the past three months, West Coast Labs has monitored and gathered data from its global honey net, which collects information on malware threats, attack vectors and the originating countries. Looking at weekly attacks on the honey net:

* United States - main origin of attacks each week * Japan - one of the top five originators each week * Taiwan and France - tied as one of the top five originators 67% of the time * Germany - a top originator 50% of the time

Other countries making the list of top five originators at least once during the monitoring period include Canada, China, Denmark, Hong Kong, and Russia.

Further assessment of the data shows the percentage of attacks upon honeypots in Great Britain and the United States originating from specific zones. Results are as follows: Great Britain

United States

Western Europe 26.67%

North America 28.63%

Far East 23.59%

Western Europe 20.97%

North America 16.41%

Far East 16.53%

Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR combined originated attacks against Great Britain and the United States are 18.47% and 13.7% respectively.

Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification - Testing Product Under Pressure, Mirrors Real-World

The Checkmark Anti-Malware certification is designed to attest to the overall effectiveness of a suite of products providing protection from a wide variety of common malware types.

A product or service qualifies for the basic Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification once it has successfully passed and continues to regularly satisfy the requirements of all three of the Checkmark Anti-Virus, Anti-Trojan, and Anti-Spyware certification categories. This gives a clear and independent indication of the products' reliability and broad-based malware detection capabilities including viruses, worms, BOTS, Trojans, and a wide variety of Spyware - backdoor, key loggers, financials, proxies, password stealers and crackers, downloaders, hijackers, and remote access Trojans (RATs).

Individual certifications within the Checkmark Anti-Malware Certification include:

* Anti-virus desktop

* Anti-virus server

* Anti-virus gateway

* Anti-virus spyware desktop

* Anti-spyware server

* Anti-spyware gateway

* Anti-Trojan

* Anti-worm Additional levels of certification, such as Anti-virus disinfection, Anti-spyware installed and Anti-worm can be obtained by a vendor to further highlight the breadth of the security solution.

Upon awarding the Anti-Malware Certification, a summary report detailing all of the current certification held by each qualifying desktop, server, and/or gateway solution is available to the participating vendors and end-users. For a complete list of participating vendors, their products and test result details visit: http://www.westcoastlabs.com/checkmark/vendorList/?techGroupID=26

About West Coast Labs Part of the Haymarket Media Group, West Coast Labs is a global leader in technical research, testing and the Checkmark Certification of information security products and services. With market-leading technology and testing facilities accredited to ISO17025 in the UK, USA and India, West Coast Labs' services and the Checkmark Certification System are being used by the leading global brands to create market advantage and by large business enterprises for obtaining crucial technical insight into product performance.

For more information or to schedule a briefing with Lysa Myers please contact Lauren Curley, [email protected], 781.383.6406.