Web security companies profit from hacker scare
Reuters Story - February 09, 2000 20:47
By Nicole Volpe
NEW YORK, Feb 9 (Reuters) - With top Internet companies shuddering under a wave of hacker attacks, Internet security companies, job-hungry consultants and even insurance companies swooped in on Wednesday to cash in on the scare.
The high-profile Web site outages, public relations nightmares for Internet giants such as Yahoo! Inc. Amazon.com and eBay Inc., became marketing dreams-come-true for the online security industry.
They offered experts, teleconferences, downloads, seminars, and of course, their services, to confront the so-called denial of service attacks and get a piece of new security efforts made by Internet companies.
"This recent security risk represents a danger to the vast majority of Web servers deployed today," said Simon Perry, the security business manager for business software company Computer Associates International Inc. . Servers are computers used to manage Web sites or networks of other machines.
There were some clear beneficiaries of the hacker threat.
Shares of Web security companies such as VeriSign Inc. , Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. , WatchGuard Technologies Inc. and Axent Technologies Inc. all saw sharp surges on Wednesday.
WatchGuard jumped 46 percent to close at 49-1/8, up 15-1/2 on the day. Entrust shares ended up 6-13/16 at 70-5/8, VeriSign shares gained 5-3/8 to 194-13/16 and Axent shares closed up 1-13/16 at 62-7/8, all on the Nasdaq.
But stocks of other Web security firms including Computer Associates, Predictive Systems Inc., and CyberGuard Corp. failed to see gains, even as they sought to capitalize on the trouble with an onslaught of press releases.
Computer Associates offered protection against "a dangerous new trend in cyber terrorism" with a free trial download of its eTrust Intrusion Detection software.
Consulting firm Predictive Systems looked to attract companies to free seminars to develop a strategy to confront attacks on corporate networks, which it said are increasing at an alarming rate. The New York-based company offered its "digital forensics experts" to confront security breaches.
CyberGuard of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., suggested that universities and libraries, whose computers can be unwittingly used in a hacker attack, could be exposed to legal action if they didn't secure their systems.
"Just as an individual may be liable for injuries caused by an unsecured gun used to commit a crime, universities and other organizations may be liable for injuries caused by their unsecured computers," Mike Wittig, CyberGuard's chief technology officer, said in a statement.
"Right now, ignorance may be a defense for organizations whose computers are being used without their knowledge, but that may not be the case forever," chimed in Adriana Kovalivska, CyberGuard's in house legal counsel.
Not to be outdone, insurers advised businesses to take out hacker protection policies. The Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade group, and the Insurance Information Network of California and sent an advisory to Internet companies to consider "e-commerce insurance."
Experts refer to the spate of electronic vandalism as "denial of service" attacks.
In such assaults, hackers illegally break into a large computer network at university or large company. Using an identity from that network, they can launch a barrage of Web page requests to a targeted site, effectively grinding it to a halt.
Such attacks are nothing new to the Internet world. They stretch back to at least 1996 when pioneering New York Internet service provider Panix was a victim., ((-- New York Newsdesk (212) 859-1700))
marketwatch.newsalert.com
For some reason I thought ENTU was not an internet security firm.
Inside options: Hope you don't mind all the posts.
Jack |
