SecureData, a member of the JSE-listed ERP.com Group, and the southern African distributor for Trend Micro security software, today announced that the latter's US operation had acquired Kelkea, a leading authority on IP filtering and reputation services.
This acquisition advances the opportunity for Trend Micro to develop network-level solutions against emerging and evolving threats such as phishing, pharming, and those that can be launched via botnets; and thus enhance its current anti-spam solutions.
"This acquisition will significantly enhance Trend Micro's ability to develop innovative solutions against threats that we know are still evolving but are extremely concerning to us," commented Eva Chen, CEO and co-founder of Trend Micro.
"We believe the integration and continued development of Kelkea and Trend Micro technology and capabilities will place us at the forefront of the fight against unpredictable malicious threats."
IP filtering is a process for identifying the sources of threats, such as spam e-mail, and preventing these threats from reaching users by blocking incoming communications of known, offensive IP addresses. Kelkea currently provides anti-spam services with this capability for some of the largest solution providers in the world, and maintains a network for monitoring and rating the reputation of IP addresses - a process known as reputation services.
Reputation services are becoming key in the fight against spam. Kelkea has an extensive knowledgebase containing detailed profiles with statistics and history for more than 1.5 billion IP addresses. In addition to protecting the e-mail and network infrastructure from spam, reputation services can also be used to defend against threats such as phishing, pharming, and threats launched by attackers using botnets.
To help oversee this technology integration, Kelkea chairman, founder and CEO Dave Rand has been named Trend Micro chief technologist of Internet Content Security.
"I'm very excited at this opportunity to work with Trend Micro, to develop forward-looking security solutions to defend businesses and consumers," said Rand. "Without appropriate security measures, the Internet has become a dangerous place - as threats evolve, so have security needs. Staying one step ahead of new, emerging Internet threats requires a layered approach to security, amalgamating a variety of advanced technologies, holistic techniques and years of security experience."
"Internet threats constantly emerge and even old threats remain persistent problems. This challenges customers to find effective and efficient ways to protect themselves," added Brian Burke, IDC Program Manager. "Within this threat landscape, solutions must combine Web filtering and anti-virus technologies and expertise. This combination can prevent attacks from hitting the network thus reducing the customer's pain."
Phishing is a social engineering phenomenon, whereby victims are tricked into handing over personal details via e-mail. Often the e-mail will claim to be from a well-known bank, requesting the victim confirm or supply sensitive personal data. Recent phishing attacks have become far more robust, with the capability to appear authentic to even the most savvy computer users.
Pharming is a more complex threat than phishing, although its intent is the same - defrauding innocent computer users. The difference is that, unlike phishing, pharming doesn't rely on fooling the user. Instead, either the victim's system or the DNS server may be compromised to re-direct traffic to a malicious site. Through 'DNS poisoning' or 'URL hijacking', even correctly-entered URLs can be successfully diverted to a malicious site - frequently an excellent mock-up of the intended site - in an attempt to extract sensitive personal data from the victim.
Botnets are a collection of computers that have become infected such that they can be utilised unbeknown to the user by the offending party to launch various kinds of threats on others, such as spam attacks or distributed denial of service attacks.
For further information, please contact Dean Brazier at telephone +27 11 257 8600; fax +27 11 257 8699
; e-mail deanb@securedata.co.za
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Trend Micro, Inc is a leader in network anti-virus and Internet content security software and services. The Tokyo-based corporation has business units worldwide. Trend Micro products are sold through corporate and value-added resellers.
SecureData
SecureData, an ERP.com company, is Africa's premier IT security solution provider. SecureData's solutions incorporate antivirus and content security, network security, intrusion prevention software and network asset management.
SecureData's comprehensive "Managed Security Services" include design, audit, implementation, vulnerability assessment, outsourcing and hosting. SecureData distributes, sells and supports category leading IT security products to the public, corporate and SME sectors throughout Africa as well as products and services to the SOHO and consumer markets through partnerships with ISPs.
As well as being the sole distributor in Sub-Saharan Africa for Trend Micro, SecureData is the African distributor for US-based TippingPoint Technologies and the southern African distributor for US-based Application Security, eEye, Rocket Software, RSA Security, St Bernard and Websense; and UK-based Centennial. For more information, visit SecureData at www.securedata.co.za
ERP.com
ERP.com is a JSE-listed company focused on the implementation, integration and management of enterprise applications in an e-business environment. For more information, visit ERP.com at www.erpcom.co.za
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