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.