Top Layer Networks' IPS 5500 Intrusion Prevention System Protects Customers from Latest Sober Worm Variant.

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. -- TopResponse Advisory Provides Steps to Block Propagation of Recent Sober Variant; Contains Measures to Protect Already-Infected Machines from Future Worm Updates

Top Layer Networks, the global leader for high performance intrusion prevention solutions, today announced that its IPS 5500 family of intrusion prevention systems protects customers from the recent variant of the Sober virus. The IPS 5500 provides network protection from the worm's propagation attempts that may impact network and system stability, lower security settings and change system configuration. Top Layer's TopResponse automated update service delivers this protection with Protection Pack 2005-12-12-01.

"Various research sources are finding that more than 75 percent of viruses reported so far in December are based on the newest variant of the Sober worm," said Peter Rendall, president and CEO of Top Layer Networks. "The Sober worm family is one of the most damaging cyber threats facing enterprises today, and the IPS 5500's inline intrusion prevention protects our customers from the latest variant."

Desktop anti-virus protection is a necessary layer in effective security strategies, but alone it is no longer sufficient to protect today's enterprise. For enterprises that consist of thousands of employees and multiple offices, desktop anti-virus is often difficult to administer and maintain across thousands of distributed enterprise endpoints. Companies that are employing effective security strategies rely on inline intrusion prevention at the Internet gateway to stop threats like the latest Sober variant from entering the network and disrupting operations.

"It's vital to employ threat protection at the Internet gateway to enhance a company's defenses from worms like Sober," added Rendall. "Combining the IPS 5500's inline intrusion prevention with our TopResponse automated update service provides customers with the confidence that they are protected from the latest threats - confidence that can't be achieved with relying solely on desktop anti-virus measures."

TopResponse Automatic Update Service is a comprehensive technical support service that provides Top Layer IPS 5500 customers with advanced security support services to maximize the security, availability and performance of their network. Specifically, TopResponse delivers Protection Pack updates of new threat information, technical support, security advisory and software subscription services, along with access to Top Layer's Security Knowledge Base and special delivery programs.

Top Layer's TopResponse threat advisory provides instructions to block propagation of the recently-discovered Sober variant. In addition, the advisory contains measures to protect already-infected machines from future worm updates, like those expected to be distributed on Jan. 6, 2006.

The Sober variant is a mass-mailing worm that uses a standalone SMTP engine to send copies of itself to e-mail addresses gathered on a local machine. The infected e-mails contain an attached zip archive with a worm executable. The name of the attached zip archive varies. The name of the worm executable in the archive is "File-packed_dataInfo.exe". The infection occurs when a user opens the attached archive and runs the executable.

About the Top Layer IPS 5500

The IPS 5500 family of products offers the strongest levels of network protection, performance and reliability on the market today. By combining stateful firewall, content-based IPS/IDS, and attack mitigation algorithms, the IPS 5500 is the only solution that provides Three Dimensional Protection (3DP) against undesired access, malicious content and rate-based attacks. Top Layer's architecture enables the IPS 5500 to protect enterprises and service providers from sophisticated, hybrid attacks in real-time while enabling the highest throughput of legitimate traffic.

The IPS 5500 remains the only IPS to receive double NSS Lab Approval for both rate-based and content-based IPS protection. It has also won approval from industry publications such as Information Security Magazine, SC Magazine, Computer Reseller News, among others.

To learn more about the IPS 5500, visit www.toplayer.com or call [phone].

About Top Layer Networks

Top Layer Networks is dedicated to its role as the leading global provider of Network Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), developing and bringing to market network security infrastructure solutions that help commercial and government organizations protect their critical on-line assets from the losses and risks associated with cyber threats. Its family of IPS appliances is designed with "Three Dimensional Protection" that provides the most advanced protection capabilities against known and unknown attacks at the highest tested performance rates. Top Layer Networks is headquartered in Massachusetts, USA with sales and support presence in Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.