Kindsight Security Trial Reveals Nearly One Third of Home Networks Have Been Successfully Hacked

Compromised Home Networks Leave Users Susceptible to ID Theft and Other Threats

Mountain View, Calif. — Dec. 15, 2010 — Kindsight, developer of online ID theft protection services, today released the results from a security trial of more than 200,000 subscribers in North America that reveals 30 percent of homes have been infected and are at serious risk of online identity theft, cybercrime and other threats.

These results were from a 30-day period and can be broken down into different types of attack as shown in the graphic below:

• Identity theft attacks allow the hacker to record and retrieve personal information about the victim. These include Trojans, such as Zeus that allow the criminal to takeover the victim’s computer and transfer money from their bank accounts, or a keylogger that can record all the information typed by the user including login information for secure web sites.
• Cybercrime refers to criminal activity where your computer unknowingly becomes infected and then attempts to do one or more of the following: launch a denial of service attack against a website ornetwork; send spam to other users; or become part of a botnet and use your computer to commit other crimes, including those related to hacking, distribution of child pornography and other serious offenses.
• A computer virus can spread to other computers by email or when you visit a poisonous site on the Internet. The term “computer virus” is used as a catch-all to also include other exploits such as worms, rootkits, etc.
• Spyware is software that you may have knowingly or unknowingly installed on your computer that performs additional activities for which you did not consent or for which you may not be aware.

“Online identity theft is a growing problem that negatively impacts everyone. Our trial results verify that the steps necessary to secure a home network can be onerous and consumers are being taken advantage of. We think that consumers will be shocked by these results and the potentially dangerous hacks to their home networks,” said Mike Gassewitz, Kindsight CEO. “It’s quite clear to us and our ISP partners that consumers need an additional layer of protection to keep their personal information secure and we continue to work with our partners to offer this service in a cost-effective manner.”

The purpose of these trials was to collect statistics related to the different types and volume of threats found in the ISP network and assess the number of Kindsight security alerts that would be generated. The Kindsight security technology was deployed in a manner consistent with other security appliances in service provider networks today. Kindsight did not identify any users or households from the traffic analyzed. At no point was any web activity stored against a person, computer or household. No characters were created and no ad serving was conducted during these trials.

About Kindsight:

Kindsight partners with Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide consumers with an additional layer of protection against identity theft and other threats. The Kindsight Identity Theft Protection Service detects threats in your Internet traffic, sends you alerts and shows you step-by-step how to remove threats that put your personal information at risk. The Kindsight service is always-on, always-up-to-date and cannot be disabled by criminals since it is embedded in the ISP’s network. The Kindsight service is offered for a monthly fee or, like many Internet applications, at no-cost through relevant advertising. Visit www.kindsight.net for more information.

Press Contact:

Matt Nagel
SHIFT Communications for Kindsight
mnagel@shiftcomm.com
415.591.8403

Brendan Ziolo
VP, Marketing for Kindsight
brendan@kindsight.net
214.606.1080