Sandstorm Enterprises Announces Single Call Detect -- Advanced Telephone Scanning Technology to be Incorporated Into New Release of PhoneSweep.CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1999-- Most Significant Development in Wardialing Since the Movie "War Games" Sandstorm Enterprises Founded in 1998 by Simson Garfinkel, James van Bokkelen, Dan Geer, and several other experts in computer security, Sandstorm is a computer security tools developer located in the greater Boston Area. Inc., an information security tools company, has released an enhanced version of its PhoneSweep telephone scanner, incorporating "Single Call Detect" to dramatically speed scans. Additional features in PhoneSweep release 1.1 include an increase in the number of target systems recognized, to more than 200, and enhancements to the tool's brute force (programming) brute force - A primitive programming style in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive methods suited to small problems directly testing mode. PhoneSweep is intended for use by security professionals to audit corporate telephone systems for vulnerabilities, such as undocumented modems tied to internal networks. PhoneSweep works like a computer criminal's "war dialer," and Sandstorm sandstorm, strong dry wind blowing over the desert that raises and carries along clouds of sand or dust often so dense as to obscure the sun and reduce visibility almost to zero; also known as a duststorm. has found an enthusiastic market for PhoneSweep among security professionals who had been using such "hackerware" for lack of a commercially-developed and supported alternative. "A surprising number of corporations, and even Federal agencies, have been using hacker tools like ToneLoc to carry out their telephone scans," said Dr. Ross Stapleton-Gray, Sandstorm's Vice President for Government Relations. "There's a certain irony -- and recklessness -- in relying upon unsupported, undocumented software to secure mission- or national security-critical networks." Single Call Detect allows PhoneSweep to determine if a telephone is answered with a voice, a second dial tone, a fax machine, or a data modem A modem used for sending data and not faxes. See modem and fax/modem. with a single call. The determination is made in less than five seconds, speeding the scanning process. "Dialing numbers and waiting for the modems to synchronize See synchronization. or time out, while simple, is neither efficient nor particularly effective," said James Van Bokkelen, Sandstorm's president. "Single Call Detect allows PhoneSweep to skip rapidly from number to number, ending a call as soon as a voice, busy or second dial tone is detected, and completing the average scan in less than half the time." The speed and accuracy afforded by Single Call Detect also reduces any inconvenience to organizations being scanned, as PhoneSweep promptly releases connections upon encountering a live or recorded voice. In developing PhoneSweep, Sandstorm worked with security expert Peter Shipley, who has scanned several million phone lines in the San Francisco Bay area “Bay Area” redirects here. For other uses, see Bay Area (disambiguation). The San Francisco Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Area or The Bay . Shipley's research has shown unsecured "back doors" at hundreds of sites -- including government and commercial systems -- that allowed full control to any caller without first asking for a username The name you use to identify yourself when logging into a computer system or online service. Both a username (user ID) and a password are required. In an Internet e-mail address, the username is the left part before the @ sign. For example, KARENB is the username in karenb@mycompany. and password. Sandstorm has used Shipley's results to train its recognition engine, and Shipley has used PhoneSweep's recognition system to categorize cat·e·go·rize tr.v. cat·e·go·rized, cat·e·go·riz·ing, cat·e·go·riz·es To put into a category or categories; classify. cat and tabulate (1) To arrange data into a columnar format. (2) To sum and print totals. the results of his project. Originally released last October, PhoneSweep is in use by both security departments and independent auditors at hundreds of sites in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. and overseas. PhoneSweep customers include both large and small companies, Federal and state governments and the military. PhoneSweep customers with current support contracts will all receive automatic upgrades to release 1.1. PhoneSweep Basic ($980) supports a single modem and up to 800 phone numbers per scanning profile. PhoneSweep Plus ($2800) supports four modems for simultaneous scanning, and 10,000 number profiles. PhoneSweep Plus8 ($5600) supports eight modems with 10,000 number profiles. Sandstorm Enterprises will be exhibiting at the 8th USENIX Security Symposium, August 23-26 in Washington D.C. PhoneSweep(TM) and Single Call Detect (TM) are trademarks of Sandstorm Enterprises Inc. Further details on PhoneSweep and "Single Call Detect" are available on the product Web site, at http://www.phonesweep.com |
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