Asta Networks' New Year's Resolution -- The End To Denial-of-Service Attacks.

Business Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2001

First automated defense against real-world

DoS attacks signals beginning of the end for the latest

threat to Internet reliability.

Seattle-based Asta Networks today announced that its technology automatically detected a series of live Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks against a network between Christmas and New Year's Day.

This marks the first time an automated router-based system was able to reveal an attack moments after it began. Asta Networks detected these attacks on the Internet2(R) Abilene backbone. DoS attacks paralyze network and Web site operations by flooding them with useless traffic, blocking customer access, and can even cause entire networks to crash.

Since the massive attacks launched last February against industry giants CNN, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, and others, companies have unsuccessfully tried to determine how to prevent future DoS attacks. Some attacks last for hours and even days. In order to identify the source of the problem, customers typically have to call in their Internet Service Provider to investigate and hope for a resolution before too much damage is done. Today's announcement demonstrates that Asta Networks technology dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to detect an attack and mount an effective response.

"Even though the attacks we saw were not on the scale of those projected by the National Infrastructure Protection Center, we were able to prove that our technology automates what has previously been a confusing, ineffective, and costly process," said Stefan Savage, chief scientist at Asta Networks. "The ability to identify suspicious floods of traffic quickly and without impacting the overall performance of the router is a significant step toward increasing Internet reliability."

Key to Asta Networks' approach to identifying DoS attacks is the ability to monitor Internet traffic without slowing the flow of normal information through the network. Asta Networks uses proprietary algorithms to monitor traffic without examining individual packets, which would create unnecessary disruption. In addition, Asta Networks' technology is deployed throughout the network in such a way that bad traffic can be stopped well before it reaches its intended victim. Because Asta Networks' technology can identify where on the Internet the attacks originate, the time it takes to respond to attacks is significantly decreased.

Asta Networks has detected attacks with both spoofed and static addresses. Several types of attacks were detected including SYN Floods, Smurf, and Fraggle attacks. The attacks were not meant directly for Internet2(R), instead they were traversing Internet2's(R) backbone on their way to the destination host.

Over the next several months Asta Networks will continue its deployment in the Internet2 Abilene backbone to monitor networks that span the United States. A commercial version of the Asta Networks product will be available later this year.

About Asta Networks

Asta Networks is a Seattle-based company creating network infrastructure technology that works with existing hardware and software to improve the reliability of the Internet. The company's initial focus is solving the intensifying problem of DoS attacks. By reducing the impact of DoS attacks and other network problems, Asta Networks will enable organizations to depend on the Internet for their critical communications and business transactions. For more information, visit www.astanetworks.com.

About Internet2(R)

Led by more than 180 U.S. universities working with industry and government, Internet2(R) is developing and deploying advanced network applications and technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2(R) recreates the partnership of academia, industry and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy. For more information about Internet2(R), see www.internet2.edu.