Corrent's Firewall/VPN Accelerator First to Withstand DDoS Attacks While Maintaining Network Throughput.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

TEMPE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 2003

Tests confirm Corrent(R) S3500 Turbocard able to withstand massive

DDoS attack while maintaining high rate of valid network traffic

Corrent Corp., the price/performance leader in network security technology, today announced the release of an upgrade to its S3500 Turbocard Firewall/VPN accelerator that will enable it to withstand a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, while keeping valid network traffic flowing at a high rate. This new capability, a first for the industry, is the result of the S3500 Turbocard's huge processing capacity. The new Corrent(R) S3500 Turbocard is able to sustain 50,000 TCP sessions per second and deliver 648 Megabits per second in throughput in the face of a concentrated attack.

In a typical DDoS attack, hundreds or even thousands of "zombie" computers that have been infected by a worm begin sending requests continuously to a "victim" site. The counterfeit requests quickly overwhelm the security appliance and choke off legitimate traffic, inevitably saturating the firewall and causing it to fail. DDoS attacks, which each year account for billions of dollars in economic damage worldwide, are among the most serious threats to ISPs, eCommerce, eBusiness, and corporate networks. A study by the University of California at San Diego estimates that there are at least 4,000 DDoS attacks each week and the number is growing. Spread by worms such as Code Red and Slammer, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) warns that the hidden programs needed to launch a massive attack can infect thousands of machines and reach global saturation within 18 hours.

"The increased frequency of network security threats, including Distributed Denial of Service attacks, has resulted in demand for more complete and sophisticated network security solutions," said Ray Keneipp, vice president and service director of the Network and Telecom Strategies (NTS) service at Burton Group. "Solutions like Corrent's S3500 Turbocard form part of a new breed of Firewall technology that provide a significant increase in performance, allowing networks to absorb attacks while still delivering high bandwidth services."

Corrent President and CEO Richard Takahashi, said, "After businesses around the globe were hit by a 'can of worms' in August, IT managers told us they felt a new sense of urgency to protect their networks from these relentless attacks. As a result, our top priority for this upgrade became ensuring that our S3500 Turbocard would keep our customers' networks running at top speed even when the inevitable attack occurs. I'm excited that we have been able to deliver this new capability, along with a host of other important features to safeguard networks."

In addition to the ability to withstand a DDoS attack, the upgrade for the S3500 Turbocard also includes a number of other features important to network security:

-- Supports Check Point's SecureXL(TM) 2.0 and 2.1 API - Enables

UDP and TCP connections management on the card by shifting

computationally intensive processes to dedicated acceleration

devices delivering multi-gigabit performance.

-- 802.1Q VLAN support - Eliminates port density issues for

customers seeking a Firewall solution that supports more

networks then the standard WAN, LAN, and DMZ.

-- VPN Back-to-Back tunneling - Now the Turbocard is able to

perform VPN back-to-back tunneling entirely within the

Turbocard. This allows VPN throughput to be maintained even

when traversing two VPN tunnels.

-- Dynamic Routing support - This feature expands the Turbocard's

ability to operate in a high-availability configuration and is

the ideal solution for customers seeking a robust firewall/VPN

installation. Additionally, it supports Check Point's

ClusterXL(TM) API, a software-based load sharing and high

availability solution that distributes traffic between

clusters of redundant gateways to increase total throughput.

"With the onset of more sophisticated and frequent Internet threats, customers depend on their VPN and firewall to perform at wire-speed even under the most stringent conditions," said Gonen Fink, vice president, solutions and strategy for Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ: CHKP). "The combination of Check Point's SecurePlatform and the SecureXL Turbocard provide the best performance and price/performance -- across all packet sizes -- in the Internet security industry. Our partnership with Corrent Corp. has truly produced a breakthrough product, sold under our brand, as Check Point SecureXL Turbocard and therefore available to all our channel partners and customers worldwide."

The Corrent S3500 Turbocard is a 64-bit PCI, IPSec firewall/VPN accelerator card that completely offloads security processing from the host CPU using optimized drivers for Check Point's SecurePlatform software. The card has three Gigabit Ethernet ports and incorporates two processors: a Corrent(R) 7120 security processor handles all IPSec VPN processing while an IBM NP4GS3 network processor handles firewall connections. The result is near line-rate throughput for both Firewall (2.8 Gbps) and VPN (2.4 Gbps). Latency is less than 32 us for firewall traffic and under 125 us for VPN traffic regardless of the packet size.

The Corrent S3500 Turbocard is sold directly by Check Point under its SecureXL Turbocard brand. The S3500 Turbocard has a MSRP of $15,000. There is no charge for the upgrade. For more information, visit: www.corrent.com.

About Corrent Corp.

Corrent Corp. is the price/performance leader in Network Security technology. Corrent provides a complete line of security processors, boards, and software to enable open system suppliers to offer high-performance, competitively priced solutions that keep enterprise networks secure. Using Corrent's building blocks, VARs and system integrators can compete successfully against suppliers of more expensive, proprietary security appliances. Corrent's products have been designed into edge access networking equipment such as routers, switches, servers, access concentrators, and dedicated IP-services appliances. The company is headquartered in Tempe, Ariz. For more information, visit: http://www.corrent.com.

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