06/02 - New Gatekeeper System Protects Business
Computers More Effectively than "Firewalls"
Trier. German scientists have developed a sluice-type system
that protects corporate computers 100 % against online hacker
attacks - making them more secure than conventional firewalls. The
Trier-based researchers at the Institut für Telematik
(Institute for Telematics), Germany's leading Internet research and
development center, shortly received a patent for their invention.
They are going to present their gatekeeper solution marketed under
the trade name "Lock-Keeper" at the RSA Conference in San Jose
(USA), the world's most important e-security event (February 18 -
22). The system successfully undermines the activities
of hackers because it never allows the company-owned computer to
come into direct physical contact with the Internet.
Professor Christoph Meinel (47), the director of the
German institute: "Firewalls do not really separate the internal
computer network of a company from the outside; they simply analyze
and filter the transmitted data parcels." According to the
telematics professor from Trier software errors, insufficient user
know-how or incorrect firewall configurations can therefore
possibly harm and even destroy the protective properties of the
firewalls.
"Companies that require extremely high levels of
security, such as banks and insurance companies, do not want to
operate their networks under such risks. Consequently, our patented
gatekeeper system has been designed to block 100% of all online
attacks against an internal computer network through physical
security measures," explains Professor Meinel. The new security
program developed by his institute ensures that data transferred
between a company's Internet provider and its Intranet must pass
through a gate. Depending on the condition of the <gates>,
information is only exchanged on one computer. This is physically
ensured. While the data is stored in the gate area, it can be
verified by the company based on its security requirements. This
does not necessarily have to take a lot of time; it can actually be
done at lightning speed.
Prof. Meinel: "The Lock-Keeper solution is reasonably
priced and easy to configure. It allows even companies that require
the highest level of security to integrate their computers into the
Internet. The complex data transport via storage media that was
standard in the past, is therefore redundant". Shortly after the
RSA 2002 in San José the Trier-based researchers will
present their new security gatekeeper system to the visitors of
CeBIT 2002 in Hanover (March 13 - 20, hall 11, booth A15), the
world's major ICT event.
Germany's leading Internet research and development
center announced that it will be launching there some other new and
user-friendly high- tech solutions for practical applications. The
institute will be presenting a product designed for automatic
mileage tracking via handheld computers and a digital time stamp -
the information age version of conventional <RECEIVED> stamps
that date back to the paper age. But that's not all: Another
revolutionary product will be shown, a patented image compression
program that speeds up the transfer times of medical images on the
Internet tenfold.