Defense.Net Selected as Finalist for RSA® Conference’s Annual Innovation Sandbox

Defense.Net Recognized For Advanced DDoS Mitigation Technology to Combat Increasing Scale and Sophistication of Modern DDoS Attacks

BELMONT, CALIF. – Defense.Net, the only company designed to mitigate the increasing scale and sophistication of modern Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, today has been named one of ten finalists for RSA® Conference’s 2014 Innovation Sandbox program. On Monday, February 24, Defense.Net will have the opportunity to demonstrate its security innovation to the Innovation Sandbox panel of judges for a chance to be named “Most Innovative Company at RSA Conference 2014”.

Innovation Sandbox promotes new approaches to technology, provides advice and counsel for entrepreneurs and exposes the RSA Conference community to venture capitalists, industry experts, senior level business practitioners and thought leaders.

“Being named to the top ten is an indicator of great things to come for our Innovation Sandbox finalists,” said Alex Bender, General Manager of RSA Conference. “Past winners and finalists have validated this honor through growth, acquisitions and funding. We expect similar results for the 2014 group and look forward to watching these organizations continue to succeed for years to come.”

Defense.Net offers DDoS mitigation services with the most advanced technology on the market developed by CTO and Co-founder, Barrett Lyon who created the DDoS mitigation industry more than 10 years ago when he founded Prolexic Technologies (acquired by Akamai last year for $370 million). Defense.Net DDoS SWAT is a service that operates in conjunction with an organization’s already deployed DDoS mitigation infrastructure to ensure operational continuity during the largest and most complex attacks. It offers a massive amount of bandwidth of up to ten times the capacity per customer of existing DDoS mitigation services and is architected to immediately mitigate these attacks and ensure uninterrupted web operations. In addition to stopping attacks, DDoS SWAT eliminates the significant side effects that come with legacy DDoS mitigation solutions, from blocked users and fraud alerts to slow page loads, broken links, and stalled or timed out video streams.

In addition to the new technology, Defense.Net’s service also includes the “Zero Day Team.” This team includes the best and brightest DDoS mitigation experts and network operators in the world, including veterans of Prolexic, Verisign, BitGravity, Juniper, Box.net and Apple’s security team. Defense.Net founder and CTO Barrett Lyon’s understanding of DDoS stretches back to his teenage years in the 1990’s when he operated IRC chat servers – the focal point for the creation of today’s DDoS techniques. As the DDoS threat spread to businesses, he went on to pioneer defenses for a variety of companies, including online wagering and one of the largest insurance companies. This led to his pursuit of hackers operating as part of the Russian mob, as chronicled in the best-selling book, Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn. After founding Prolexic Technologies, Lyon founded two successful companies focused on streaming digital content on the web.

“Every week we are seeing reports of websites, applications and services that are overwhelmed by DDoS attacks that are 16X larger than just one year ago,” said Chris Risley, CEO of Defense.Net. “It’s clear that the DDoS mitigation techniques developed in 2003 when the industry was founded don’t work for global enterprises today, which is why we created DDoS SWAT, which is powered by the most advanced mitigation technology on the market.”

The “Most Innovative Company at RSA Conference 2014” winner will be determined at the conclusion of Innovation Sandbox, after each finalist gives a short presentation to a panel of judges that includes Asheen Chandna, Partner at Greylock Partners; Gerhard Eschelbeck, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Sophos; Alastair Goldfisher, Editor of Venture Capital Journal; George Hoyem, Investment Partner at In-Q-Tel; Paul Kocher, President of Cryptography Research; and Katie Moussouris, Senior Security Strategist Lead at Microsoft.

Additional information about the “Most Innovative Company at RSA Conference 2014” contest and Innovation Sandbox program can be found at:www.rsaconference.com/TheSandbox

About Defense.Net

Founded by Barrett Lyon, who created the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack mitigation industry more than 10 years ago, Defense.Net has combined the top minds in the DDoS space with breakthrough new technologies designed to effectively address today’s and tomorrow’s DDoS mitigation challenges. It is the only company to defend businesses and organizations against this new generation of massive and sophisticated DDoS attacks while delivering the highest levels of Internet application performance – two areas where legacy DDoS mitigation services have not been able to match the modern strategies of today’s cyberattackers. With increasing threats from the escalating scale and complexity of DDoS attacks and a growing number of antagonists willing to use them, Defense.Net protects organizations from modern attacks by providing end-users with a seamless experience as if no attack were occurring. The company has raised more than $9.5M in debt and equity financing with investors that include visionary security and Internet investor Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).

About RSA Conference 

RSA Conference helps drive the global information security agenda with annual events in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Since 1991, RSA Conference consistently attracts the best and brightest in the field, creating opportunities to learn about information security’s most important issues through face-to-face and online interactions with peers, luminaries and emerging and established companies. As information security professionals work to stay ahead of ever-changing security threats and trends, they turn to RSA Conference for a 360-degree view of the industry. RSA Conference seeks to arm participants with the knowledge they need to remain at the forefront of the information security business. More information on events, online programming and the most up-to-date news pertaining to the information security industry can be found at www.rsaconference.com.

Addendum: F5 Networks acquired Defense.Net in May 2014

About F5

F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) makes apps go faster, smarter, and safer for the world’s largest businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands. F5 delivers cloud and security solutions that enable organizations to embrace the application infrastructure they choose without sacrificing speed and control. For more information, go to f5.com. You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technologies.

F5 is a trademark or service mark of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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