Finjan plans applet blocking dominance

Seeking to take full advantage of recently being named a Cool Company of 1997 by Fortune magazine, Internet security firm Finjan Software is forging key alliances and releasing products for smaller companies.

Finjan's technology for inspecting and blocking malicious ActiveX and Java applets is quickly becoming a standard with Cisco recently joining Finjan's Java Security Alliance (JSA) and saying it will integrate Finjan code in its firewall product line. Finjan already claims that over 90 per cent of the firewall industry supports its technology and other big names are expected to include Finjan code in products in the near future.

Lior Arussy, VP of sales and marketing for Finjan, said that Finjan has been successful because competing products such as McAfee's WebScanX use old technology. WebScanX, for example, uses a monthly database of hostile applets as its base, similar to the approach it takes to antivirus products.

Separately, Arussy said Finjan will in the next fortnight enter the entry-level firewall market by releasing SurfinCheck. Aimed at companies with 25 users or less, the product examines Java, VB Script and ActiveX applet class loaders (headers or summaries) rather than the whole of the applet. UK pricing is not yet available but in the US, SurfinCheck will cost $695 (10-user) and $1,495 (25-user).

"We're aiming to approach the security issue from every angle: for individual user, SoHo, SME and enterprise," Arussy said.