At its peak in early October 2002, the Bugbear virus affected one in 87 emails, wreaking havoc with corporate email systems around the globe. But things would have been worse for some companies if not for IntruVert Networks.

The supplier of intrusion detection system (IDS) hardware and software was able to help block the virus by creating an attack ‘signature’ and making it available

online in just eight hours, compared with the days it took competitors.

The company’s flagship product, IntruShield 4000, is typically installed at a network’s perimeter, detecting and rejecting any anomalous network packets as they come streaming in at several gigabits per second. That includes 1,650 known attacks that are identifiable by their behaviour profiles. Alongside that, Intruvert’s mid-range IDS appliance, IntruShield 2600, provides detection capabilities in front of the firewall for traffic speeds of up to 600 megabits per second.

Both products sit within the IntruShield Security Management system, an IDS console which delivers alerts in real-time. But the real differentiator of IntruVert’s technology is its use of a single appliance to detect and prevent known and unknown attacks. It can do this at traffic speeds of up to two gigabits per second, whereas “other IDS products start to drop packets at about 200 megabits per second”, often with serious consequences, claims the company’s co-founder and CEO Parveen Jain.

IntruVert is targeting this technology at large enterprises and government bodies, and has convinced several, including the US government’s House of Representatives and the US National Library of Medicine, to beta test its systems. So far, these early users share Jain’s belief that IntruVert’s technology can compete against IDS products from heavyweight suppliers such Internet Security Systems, Cisco Systems and Enterasys Networks. “During beta deployment, the IntruShield sensor caught 800,000 Code Red and Nimda attacks within hours,” says Louis Magnotti, director, information systems security of the US House of Representatives. All it needs now is another Bugbear so it can show what its products can do.