Network Associates Chosen to Design and Build Next Generation Internet Security Protocols for DARPA
NAI Labs' Advanced Security Research Division Awarded Multi-Million Dollar
Contracts to Secure New Networking Paradigm
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Network Associates, Inc. (Nasdaq: NETA)
announced today that its research division, NAI Labs, has received three U.S.Government-funded contracts to build security products and protocols for the next generation of computer networks. The contracts come under a new initiative dubbed "Active Networks," and are funded by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the same group that funded development of the Internet in the 1970s. The contracts are designed to develop new products which will be among the first available to secure the networks of tomorrow.
"If history is any indicator, the technology produced as a result of these contracts will lay the foundation for the evolution of computer networking," said Dr. Terry Benzel, Director of NAI Labs' Advanced Security Research Division. "A large percentage of the
protocols, products and architectures currently in use in the private sector have their roots in government-funded research, and for fifteen years, we've been winning contracts to contribute security to those evolutionary pieces. As DARPA now considers a fundamental
overhaul of its entire networking architecture, they are keeping very few things constant, and we're proud that NAI Labs security research is one of them."
These contracts continue one of the most fruitful relationships in the history of information security. In 1993, as the Internet was coming into prominence, DARPA asked what was then Trusted Information Systems' (TIS) Advanced Research and Engineering Division to investigate the ramifications of connecting private networks to a public data network. As a result of that contract, TIS invented the popular "fwtk" application proxy firewall toolkit, and went on to produce Gauntlet, the world's first commercial firewall. Four years later, DARPA awarded TIS several contracts to investigate the need for faster proxy firewalls, feeling that the loss of security associated with other available architectures was an unacceptable tradeoff. After acquiring TIS in April of 1998, Network
Associates built the results of this new research into Gauntlet, creating the world's first Adaptive Proxy firewall. The TIS research division now operates as part of NAI Labs, where it has won millions of dollars in research contracts to date this year and continues to provide technology to enhance the company's commercial products. The
Gauntlet firewall is now part of Net Tools Secure, Network Associates' comprehensive network security suite incorporating anti-virus, firewall, encryption, authentication, intrusion detection, vulnerability assessment, and security management.
The new contracts come under DARPA's "Active Networks" initiative. Active Networks allow applications to deploy network services tailored to their specific needs in real-time, as data travels across the network. This new paradigm allows for dynamic injection of new capabilities for distributed computing, as well as radically more
effective use of the infrastructure. However, the dynamic capabilities of Active Networks increase the security risks of
unauthorized modification of network behavior. Under the DARPA contracts,
* NAI Labs is developing secure working prototypes of Active Networks.
* NAI Labs is developing Amp, a new software base for Active Network
nodes, that will deliver the technology needed to deploy an Active
Networks backbone.
* NAI Labs is also developing new cryptographic techniques to meet the
unique requirements and constraints of Active Networks.
All three contracts extend the paradigm used in Network Associates' commercial development of "Active Security," whereby security products are integrated and enhanced to work in concert, actively communicating alerts between applications and adapting security policies of these applications for real-time active response when critical security threats are detected.
NAI Labs, the research division of Network Associates, Inc., is the industry's leading security research organization with more than 180 experienced researchers around the world and research facilities on five continents. NAI Labs is a multi-discipline research
organization with world-renowned expertise in the areas of virus and malicious code security, computer vulnerability and exploit prevention, and advanced security research. In addition to its prominent role in the security research community, all NAI Labs
research is made immediately available to the product development and support organizations at Network Associates to enable superior solutions for Network Associates customers.
With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Network Associates, Inc. is a leading supplier of enterprise network security and management software. Network Associates' Net Tools Secure and Net Tools Manager offer best-of-breed, suite-based network security and
management solutions. Net Tools Secure and Net Tools Manager suites combine to create Net Tools, which centralizes these point solutions within an easy-to-use, integrated systems management environment. For more information, Network Associates can be reached at 408-988-3832 or on the Internet at nai.com.
NOTE: TIS, Gauntlet and Net Tools are registered trademarks of Network Associates and/or its affiliates in the US and other countries. All other registered and unregistered trademarks in this document are the sole property of their respective owners.
/CONTACT: Jennifer Keavney of Network Associates, 408-346-3278; or Cabe Franklin of
Copithorne & Bellows, 415-975-2223, for Network Associates/
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