Leading Security Analyst Confirms Blue Coat Proxy Appliances Key For Web Visibility And Control

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 8, 2004 — Blue Coatâ„? Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), a leading provider of proxy appliances, today announced that a newly published Spire Security research report validates proxy appliances are instrumental for controlling employee Web use and protecting organizations against Web threats introduced by users on the network.

Spire Security is a leading research and consulting firm that specializes in information security issues. In the firm’s April 2004 report titled, “The Proxy Appliance: Guardian for Your Web Users,” research director Pete Lindstrom highlights how proxy appliances can safeguard organizations from the seemingly innocuous browsing of the Internet that can often cause various forms of business risks, including open back doors for viruses and legal liability from inappropriate Web use.

According to Lindstrom, the solution for controlling employee Web use is to leverage a proxy appliance to “coordinate and manage access in a way to allow real work to continue while ratcheting down on inappropriate use and protecting against surreptitious attacks.” Lindstrom also highlights that “Blue Coat’s ProxySG proxy appliance is an excellent platform to run a number of security services, including URL filtering, Web anti-virus and instant messaging control,” and that the proxy appliance gives an organization “total visibility and control over all content, transactions and the context of Web communications.”

“Proxy appliances are vital to ensuring employees do not introduce new risks to the organization through the open Web channels that exist in today’s networks,” said Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Blue Coat. “The proxy appliance serves as a centralized, high-performance platform for consolidating features such as URL filtering and Web anti-virus with simplified management and lower total costs of operations.”

A copy of the Spire Security report can be downloaded from the Blue Coat Web site at www.bluecoat.com.

About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat enables organizations to keep “good” employees from doing “bad” things on the Internet. Blue Coat wire-speed proxy appliances provide visibility and control of Web communications to address today’s new business risks – such as inappropriate Web surfing, viruses brought in via back door channels such as instant messaging and Web-based email, and network resource abuse due to peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and video streaming. Trusted by many of the world’s most influential organizations, Blue Coat has shipped more than 18,000 proxy appliances. Blue Coat is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and can be reached at (408) 220-2200 or www.bluecoat.com.