Monday, 28 November 2005 22:32 EST

LONDON - 28 November 2005: Internet Security Systems (ISS), number 1 supplier of pre-emptive security solutions for the Internet, reports an increase in extremist and illegal content on the World Wide Web. According to ISS, the number of Web sites making such content available has risen by 42.3% from 132,000 in November 2004 to over 188,000 in November 2005. This corresponds to over 16 million individual Internet pages.

In the ISS data processing centre located in Kassel in Germany, a thousand PCs are continuously crawling the Internet for new Web pages. Every day, images, graphics and texts of Internet offerings are constantly and automatically analysed and classified.

Every page is classified into one of 60 subject categories covering everything from normal Web use, such as home banking, online shopping, music, and sport, through to more dubious categories such as weapons, spyware distribution sites, extremist pages, etc. Every page’s classification is entered into ISS’ web content filtering database. At present, over 5 billion Internet pages and images from over 60 million individual Web sites have been logged, making it the most up-to-date, effective and powerful Web content filtering database in the world. Users of the filter database can then control their Internet access in an individual, content-dependent way.

The Web content filtering database is central to ISS’ Proventia Webfilter product, which ISS offers to organisations to optimise Internet access for employees and to prevent any kind of non work-related Internet use. This way, employee productivity is increased and legal liability through use of illegal private “surf trips” at the workplace is reduced.

For educational institutions or for private households, the most important categories are those which contain content that could be harmful to minors. The Internet content that ISS includes in its “extremism” and “illegal activities” categories are topics such as instructions on how to make weapons and bombs, hardcore pornography, satanism, occultism, suicide forums or pages about human cannibalism. Sites encouraging suicide or self-mutilation, violence, torture, etc. are also included in these categories. Incitement to carry out illegal activities like murder or arson also attributed to this category. Businesses and private households using ISS products can be assured that such web sites can be easily blocked when using Proventia Webfilter so that their users are shielded from harmful content.

About Internet Security Systems, Inc.

Internet Security Systems, Inc. (ISS) is the trusted expert to global enterprises and world governments, providing products and services that protect against Internet threats. An established world leader in security since 1994, ISS delivers proven cost efficiencies and reduces regulatory and business risk across the enterprise. ISS products and services are based on the proactive security intelligence conducted by ISS’ X-Force® research and development team – the unequivocal world authority in vulnerability and threat research. Headquartered in Atlanta, Internet Security Systems has additional operations throughout the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit the Internet Security Systems Web site at www.iss.net or call +32 (0)2 479 67 97