SecureWorks Prevents Nimda Attack

ATLANTA, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire/ — SecureWorks announced today that its managed intrusion prevention services successfully protected its customers against the destructive Nimda Worm. SecureWorks’ 24/7 security operations center captured the worm at 9:00 a.m. on September 19 and began blocking web attacks immediately. Shortly after, SecureWorks security specialists pushed out a comprehensive attack signature for Nimda to all customers’ iSensors, the network security appliance that uses these signatures to identify possible network intruders.

“With the onslaught of the Nimda virus, SecureWorks witnessed an almost 2000% increase per hour in attempted security breaches among our customers,” said Robert Minkhorst, president and CEO of SecureWorks. “This was one of the fastest spreading worms that we have monitored. Fortunately, the synergy between our advanced network security technology and security specialists enabled us to inoculate customers against Nimda quickly and effectively.” More invasive and destructive than Code Red, the Nimda worm propagates itself through an email attachment called readme.exe. Nimda works by installing itself into web servers and using the system to attempt to attack other systems by mass emailing.

Because the worm itself could not be predicted until observed, SecureWorks’ security specialists identified the attack signature in real time and dynamically updated SecureWork’s iSensor to protect customers. The SecureWorks iSensor is a network-based device that blocked the Nimba worm’s infection vectors before it reached the victim’s machine, providing a safety zone for patches to be installed to remove the inherent vulnerability. With a three-prong approach to intrusion prevention, including data fingerprint correlation technology, real-time intervention and dynamic inoculation technology, SecureWorks prevented networks from being compromised.

SecureWorks is the first “next generation” network security service designed to prevent network intrusions by professional hackers. The company provides comprehensive intrusion prevention by offering three key components: real-time intervention, data fingerprint correlation, and dynamic inoculation technology. SecureWorks’ proactive security solution is based on a network security appliance, the iSensor, and our technology working in concert with security specialists located at the company’s security operations center. For more information about SecureWorks, please visit http://www.secureworks.com .