Ex-KGB Expert Unveils New
Computer Shield
By Reuters
May 21 2001
The new system can change the cyber-addresses on a
network faster than once a second, cloaking them from all
but authorized parties.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The one-time
head of KGB overseas code-scrambling
and an ex-director of the CIA rolled out
Monday what they called a revolutionary
way of hiding Internet communications
from prying eyes and would-be intruders.
The new system can change the
cyber-addresses on a network faster
than once a second, cloaking them from
all but authorized parties, said Victor
Sheymov -- founder, president, and chief
executive of Invicta Networks Inc.
"We believe that our new technology will serve an important role
as a facilitator of Internet security and will start a new chapter
in Internet history,'' he told reporters at the National Press Club.
Endorsing Invicta's so-called Variable Cyber Coordinates system
was American International Group Inc., the world's biggest
insurance company by market cap, with more than $250 billion
in assets.
Ty Sagalow, chief operating officer of the insurer's electronic
business risks arm, announced AIG would give a 10 percent
discount to companies using the Invicta product "because we
believe it reduces our risk of loss'' due to cyber attack.
R. James Woolsey, Bill Clinton's CIA director from 1993 to 1995
and an Invicta board member, described the tool as an
''absolutely remarkable intellectual achievement.''
"It just approaches this from a completely different direction
than anybody else,'' he told reporters. "Everybody else has been
building fences around announced locations.''
Standard approaches to computer security rely on encryption,
or data scrambling, plus devices such as firewalls aimed at
screening out abnormal traffic patterns that look threatening.
But any network protected this way is a sitting duck for a
determined hacker, Invicta said. Instead, it puts the network in
cybermotion through a continuous change of "Internet Protocol''
addresses -- the chain of digits underlying the Web to route
traffic to its destination.
The Invicta system uses special cards to link protected
computers to a central control unit. It lets clients decide how
often they wish to vary IP addresses and specify which
applications may be accessed on their network. The number of
IP addresses drawn on may be in the billions thanks to an
artificial increase in cyberspace, Sheymov said.
Invicta, headquartered in Herndon, Va., plans to begin shipping
a "Beta,'' or early release, of its system to paying customers by
the end of this month, said Sheymov, who defected to the U.S.
in 1980 for what he called ideological reasons.
Sheymov is a veteran of the KGB's 8th Chief Directorate, the
Soviet counterpart to the Pentagon's codecracking and
eavesdropping National Security Agency. By the time of his
defection, he was responsible for coordinating all KGB encrypted
communications overseas. After defecting, he worked as a
consultant and contractor to the NSA for several years,
according to a company handout.
The CIA officer who smuggled him out of the former Soviet
Union and who later served as Moscow chief of station under
Woolsey, David Rolph, is Invicta's vice president for international
sales.
Sheymov told reporters that Invicta's address-hopping
technology went well beyond network protection. Another
version would be made available within months for defending
Internet-based electronic commerce, he said. Future
applications included protecting national infrastructure,
databases and dial-up communications, he added.
He declined to spell out the cost of the system but said it would
be on the ``high end'' of traditional computer security
packages. Invicta, a 1999 start-up, may go public in a year or
two after it establishes a track record of earnings and sales
growth, Sheymov said.
Dennis Steinauer, a computer security specialist at the
Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and
Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., said he would be skeptical of
any tool that purported to make other layers of security
unnecessary.
"It sounds like it might provide some additional protection,'' he
said. ``But, in general, you never want to go with just one
layer of security, certainly not with yet-unproven technology,''
he said.
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