MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – July 27, 2005 – Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH), the developer of ground-breaking RPD™ technology for real time anti-spam and Zero-Hour™ virus protection, announced today the availability of a survey that evaluates corporate exposure to viruses in the first hours after their release. The survey was conducted by Osterman Research within the framework of its “Messaging Security Market Trends” study, Commtouch, along with other early subscribers to the report, contributed questions to the surveys that were fielded for this vendor-independent study.
Osterman Research surveyed 115 respondents, including IT and security managers from 12 vertical segments. The average organization surveyed has 21,000 employees, and 74 have over 2,500 employees.
The survey shows that even though every enterprise has some form of anti-virus (AV) protection in place they are still far from a complete antivirus protection. 93% of companies have been infiltrated by at least one type of Malware. Since signatures are fully effective once they are released, this level of vulnerability is primarily due to exposure before new signatures are released (zero-hour exposure).
“It is striking to note that more than three out of four messaging decision-makers consider zero-hour virus protection to be important or extremely important in the context of protecting their messaging systems,” stated Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research. Other serious problems included growth in email storage (65%), spam quantities (63%) and inadequate email archiving (63%).
Not surprisingly, 93% of IT managers expect to obtain zero-hour protection from their current AV vendors. However, the majority will also consider purchasing zero-hour virus protection solutions elsewhere, for example: from their current anti-spam vendors (57%), other AV vendors (44%), other anti-spam vendors (26%) and from other vendors (10%). “When it comes to virus protection, many enterprise customers look for best-of-breed solutions and they are willing to go across the street to get them,” stated Osterman. “We anticipate that anti-virus vendors will be quite aggressive over the next 24 months in developing zero-hour protection capabilities integrated with their anti-virus offerings.”
“There is a clear discrepancy between signatures’ near-perfect detection rates, and the imperfect AV protection experience of enterprises. The discrepancy is largely due to new types of Malware, which are designed to proliferate rapidly, infecting millions of users within hours or even minutes. Much damage can be done in the first few hours of a new outbreak, before new signatures are released,” said Oren Drori, director of product marketing at Commtouch.
The survey is now available for free downloading at www.commtouch.com
Osterman Research is one of the leading analyst firms in the messaging and collaboration space, providing research, analysis, white papers and other services to companies like Microsoft, America Online, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, Network Appliance, Iron Mountain, Postini, Hewlett Packard and many others. The core of Osterman Research's capabilities is its market research panel of IT professionals and end users that are regularly surveyed on a variety of topics related to email, instant messaging, spam, collaboration, security, storage, archiving, data retention, compliance and other areas. This continually updated knowledge base of information from decision makers and influencers helps Osterman Research to understand developments and gain insight into the trends that affect its clients.
Commtouch's Zero-Hour Virus Protection is based on the company’s Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD) technology, which detects and blocks unwanted messages according to their most fundamental characteristic—mass distribution over the Internet. Recognized by key industry analysts as a leading technology in Malware outbreak detection, Zero-Hour detects and blocks 90% of new Malware outbreaks, within minutes of their introduction into the Internet. Zero-Hour is a high-performance solution designed for AV and anti-spam vendors, security appliance vendors and managed service providers.
Commtouch Software Ltd. (Nasdaq:CTCH) is dedicated to protecting and preserving the integrity of the world's most important communications tool-email. Commtouch has 14 years of experience developing messaging software, and is a global developer and provider of proprietary anti-spam and Zero-Hour virus protection solutions aimed to complete antivirus protection. Using core technologies including RPD Recurrent Pattern Detection, the Commtouch Detection Center analyzes 1.5 billion email messages per month to identify new spam and malware outbreaks within minutes of their introduction into the Internet. Integrated by 28 OEM partners, Commtouch technology protects thousands of organizations, with 35 million users in 100 countries. Commtouch is headquartered in Netanya, Israel and has a subsidiary in Mountain View, CA. For more information, see: www.commtouch.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including projections about our business, within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For example, statements in the future tense, and statements including words such as "expect," "plan," "estimate," anticipate," or "believe" are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on information available to us at the time of the release; we assume no obligation to update any of them. The statements in this release are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations as a result of numerous factors, including business conditions and growth or deterioration in the Internet market, commerce and the general economy, both domestic as well as international; fewer than expected new-partner relationships; fewer than expected license agreements resulting from Commtouch's exclusive rights to market DCC; competitive factors including pricing pressures; technological developments, and products offered by competitors; the ability of our OEM partners to successfully penetrate markets with products integrated with Commtouch technology; a slower than expected acceptance rate for real time AV solutions in general and the Commtouch Zero Hour(TM) Virus Protection product in particular; availability of qualified staff for expansion; technological difficulties and resource constraints encountered in developing new products, such as the Zero Hour solution; and the failure of Commtouch to meet The NASDAQ SmallCap Market's listing standards in the future;, as well as those risks described in the text of this press release and the company's Annual Reports on Form 20-F and reports on Form 6-K, which are available through www.sec.gov.
Recurrent Pattern Detection, RPD and Zero-Hour are trademarks, and Commtouch is a registered trademark, of Commtouch Software Ltd. U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is owned by Commtouch.
Contact:
Krems Public Relations for Commtouch
Michael Krems, 650-759-7133
krems@kremspr.com
