March 11, 2004

WebCentral Looks to Esphion to Enhance and Protect Network Infrastructure

Australia’s largest web hosting company, WebCentral, is deploying Esphion’s advanced network intelligence solutions to protect its clients against aggressive new global Internet threats.

Esphion’s world leading anomaly detection solutions identify network worms, denial of service and other attacks before they become entrenched, protecting information and businesses from damage, disruption and downtime.

New Zealand – 11 March 2004 – Esphion Limited today announced that Australia’s largest web hosting company, WebCentral, has signed an agreement to deploy a NetX appliance to combat worms and other security threats.

Esphion’s NetX appliance monitors and precisely analyses network traffic patterns, identifying anomalies as they arise, and before they are able to take full effect. Its proprietary algorithms automatically develop threat signature markers which enable network managers to limit and stop new, recently released and previously undetected security threats.

NetX appliances will also provide WebCentral with in-depth visibility into network behaviour and usage, allowing it to deliver a more cost effective, faster and highly efficient range of network services for customers. WebCentral currently hosts more than 60,000 sites and domains for corporations, government organisations and small and medium sized businesses.

“Esphion’s unique traffic visibility and analysis approach will enhance the operation, management and security of WebCentral’s IP networks and services,” says Ashwin Sharma, WebCentral Network Operations Manager. “WebCentral’s highly skilled engineering and product teams are continually enhancing our network infrastructure with the latest in technology and Esphion’s NetX solutions will help to ensure we maintain the performance levels expected by our customers. This solution delivers the enhanced high speed traffic visibility needed to quickly detect, diagnose and resolve network issues that arise from time to time.”

“Esphion’s Network Intelligence solutions set the standard in network intelligence and protection, enabling our customers to better manage the integrity, visibility and availability of their IP infrastructure,” says Greg Cross, CEO of Esphion. “It is no longer enough to react to a threat once you have been targeted – proactive threat management and accurate visibility of the network traffic behavior is the key.”

Esphion’s Australian Sales Manager, Philip Walls says, “Our approach represents a step forward in actively managing the current and emerging threats that plague networks today. Built on neural analysis technology, Esphion’s solution leads the world in probability-based modeling, which means we can detect, define and defeat the latest and most aggressively spreading worms, being released today in hours rather than days.”

“While media attention focuses on malicious network activity such as worms and spam, which damage network capabilities, commercial users of data networks have to confront many other undesirable activities that also add cost and impair network performance,” adds Walls. “These problems include oversights in router/switch configurations, peer-to-peer traffic volume, game playing, web server traffic and flash crowds. Esphion’s solution is designed to manage not just one facet of the problem, it encompasses and provides surety by identifying and justifying network traffic usage, anomalies and their costs – which all may have a substantial impact on a company’s ability to profitably benefit from its network”.

Esphion NetX solutions provide real time visibility into any sudden changes in traffic patterns and detailed analysis and reporting on the business implications of such anomalies or changes to their network. They are built upon cost effective, high performance appliances and may be deployed individually or as a distributed and geographically dispersed solution for network-wide data collection, analysis and anomaly detection. NetX Appliances will diagnose an anomaly from IP packets in real-time, produce precise signatures of anomalous events that may be quickly applied to network and security elements and also provide detailed utilisation information that will allow network managers to ensure that they are making the best use of existing infrastructure.

About WebCentral
WebCentral is a leading supplier of internet solutions for business, including complex hosting, sophisticated email, electronic commerce, real time payment solutions, domain name registration and a wide variety of other value added services.

In addition to its own direct customer base, WebCentral provides wholesale web hosting and email services to the majority of Australia's Tier 1 telecommunications companies and ISPs. The company currently hosts more than 60,000 sites and domains for corporations, government organisations and small and medium businesses and delivers more than 3 million email messages per day.

Established in 1997, WebCentral is a private company 49.4% owned by FTR Holdings (ASX FTR). WebCentral was awarded the Microsoft Asia Pacific Hosting Partner of the Year in 2003 and was ranked 4th in the 2003 BRW Fast 100.For more information, please visit www.webcentral.com.au.

About Esphion
Esphion is a world leader in providing solutions that collect and analyze IP network traffic to protect and enhance the value of its customer’s networks. Esphion’s netX range of solutions protect networks against the ever increasing threat of attack, including Zero-Day attacks and other traffic anomalies that can impact network availability and performance.

The intelligence gathered by Esphion appliances also provide critical inputs to mange procurement costs, monitor Service Levels, forecast requirements and allocate costs.

Funded by TMT Venture Partners and New Zealand Seed Fund, Esphion’s Research and Development is based in Auckland, New Zealand, with Sales Offices in Australia, Hong Kong, China, and the United States.

Further Information:

Greg Cross
CEO, Esphion
Tel: 09 414 4746
Mobile: 021 417799
Email: gcross@esphion.com
Web: www.esphion.com