BrightCloud(R) Software Development Kit Available for Immediate Download.

Hosted Security Service Provider Announces Immediate Availability of Software Development Kit Enabling Third Party Developers to Integrate Web Filtering for the Long Tail into Their Product Offerings

SAN DIEGO -- BrightCloud, Inc., a security startup OEMing hosted web filtering services to security appliance and application vendors, today announced the availability of the BrightCloud[R] Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK enables OEMs to integrate web filtering across the Internet's Long Tail into their security solutions, enhancing their value proposition to their end customers with a comprehensive and necessary security layer not available from any other web filtering vendor.

The BrightCloud SDK defines the interface for interacting with the BrightCloud hosted services, as well as providing a series of reference clients. Each reference client includes the source code for a BrightCloud Agent which, when integrated with a third party security solution, queries the BrightCloud Master Database for the categories of a website. Covering well over 40 million active websites and several billion web pages, the BrightCloud Master Database is quickly growing to extend web filtering value propositions across the Long Tail of the Internet - that is, not only the 20 million most popular websites, which capture 50% of an enterprise's web visits, but the 430 million less popular sites across which the remaining 50% of visits are distributed.

With Internet threats expanding in both number and sophistication, it is simply too risky to fail open when a user comes across an "uncategorized" web site, as is the typical policy implemented by customers using the smaller URL databases provided by the web filtering market leaders of today. The cost from a single click can be high.

The BrightCloud SDK provides source code for reference clients encompassing a series of operating systems, including Red Hat Linux, Microsoft Windows Server, and Microsoft Windows XP. Additionally, upon request, source code for specific firewall reference clients is available including Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server, and Squid. Other integrations, such as support for Checkpoint NGX, are in the pipeline.

"We are extremely pleased to make our SDK available for release," said Quinn Curtis, BrightCloud CEO. "We strongly believe that web filtering should be a feature of a broader security solution, rather than a standalone product. Consequently, we have focused on what we are good at - categorizing web sites across the Long Tail of the Internet, and providing an system that makes accessing that information as effective and efficient as possible - and we let our OEMs deliver the elements that they are good at, such as their core security applications and their existing reporting and policy implementations. Combining best of breed web filtering with their security solution enables them to provide their end customers with a comprehensive multi-layered security solution."

The reference client, the source code for which is included in the BrightCloud SDK, is also highly performant, able to handle up to 1,500 requests per second. Support for a local cache of arbitrary size is also provided, which enables an even higher level of local performance. The hosted model enables the BrightCloud Agent to be deployed across a range of hardware configurations, from those with very a limited hardware footprint, to the most robust hardware.

"The simplicity of the BrightCloud SDK, coupled with its high performance, makes integrating a BrightCloud Agent into a broader solution on a security appliance or application a very compelling exercise," said Hal Lonas, BrightCloud Vice President of Engineering. "We have built it from the ground up with the third party developer in mind, and that developer has the freedom to take what we have provided, since it is very close to a production quality implementation, or to enhance in ways that make sense for their specific integration."

The combination of a hosted web filtering service, a lightweight and highly performant reference client that is easily integrated into a third party security solution, and the largest and most accurate URL database available, makes integrating the BrightCloud hosted security service as part of a multi-layered security solution extremely compelling. The BrightCloud SDK is available for immediate download at www.brightcloud.com/sdk.

About BrightCloud

BrightCloud, Inc. provides security vendors with hosted security services that extend the value propositions of web filtering across the Internet's Long Tail - the 450 million Websites visited by enterprise customers - which includes both the most popular sites as well as those sites less frequently visited, but visited nonetheless. Target customers include enterprise security vendors in the security appliance, enterprise security application, end point security, enterprise security application, wireless and xSP spaces. BrightCloud uses the latest in machine learning algorithms, as well as human classification, to build the largest and most accurate URL database available. By integrating the BrightCloud services, OEMs can provide their end customers with a richer, multi-layered security solution. For more information visit www.brightcloud.com.

[c] 2006, BrightCloud, Inc. All rights reserved. BrightCloud is a registered trademark of BrightCloud, Inc. in the United States and certain international markets. BrightCloud has numerous other unregistered trademarks in the United States and internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.