Aladdin Estimates that Seventy Percent of Virus Writers Now Focused on Creating Contracted Spyware

Major motivator for virus writers changing from damage to greed

Aladdin eSafe adds gateway protection for hundreds of new spyware applications

CHICAGO, April 4, 2005, - Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALDN) today announced it estimates that more than 70 percent of virus writers worldwide are now focused on creating contracted spyware.

The announcement follows detailed analysis conducted by the Aladdin Content Security Response Team (CSRT) evaluating recent viruses and virus writer activity. Aladdin CSRT research concludes that spyware is the favorite among malicious code writers, as it allows them to wrap their "technology" and sell it or even introduce their own money-making ventures.

"Our analysis over the last several months confirms that the majority of virus writers are shifting away from creating complicated viruses purely aimed at causing havoc, and instead, are creating spyware that is linked to organized crime and illegal money-making opportunities," said Shimon Gruper, vice president of technologies for the Aladdin eSafe Business Unit. "Aladdin is confident that it will continue to see a growing number of spyware applications linked to organized crime, jointly created by those with the resources to create the applications and those with the resources to quickly utilize the stolen data. This is a major change from the types of threats that we saw emerging just a few years ago."

Aladdin Responds by Adding Gateway Protection for Spyware

Forrester Research predicts that spyware will reach at least 25 percent of all business computers within the next 12 months. In response to this fast-growing threat, Aladdin recently added gateway protection signatures to its Aladdin eSafe product to identify hundreds of new spyware components and spyware communications. An integrated, proactive content security and anti-virus protection solution for large organizations, Aladdin eSafe now guards against spyware, password stealing Trojans, and multipurpose automated zombie bot networks that are used for various malicious activities such as spamming, phishing, denial of service and using victim PCs as attack proxies.

Aladdin eSafe is the only gateway product providing four layers of spyware protection, as well as multiple content security layers against other malicious code -- all at the entrance to the organization. Other solutions in the market focus on only one or two layers of spyware protection, leaving organizations susceptible to "smart" users who can circumvent desktop policy, but not gateway enforcement. Desktop solutions may also not be effective against "driveby" spyware, while also lacking enterprise-wide real-time spyware activity monitoring.

"In the past malicious code writers were motivated by technological challenges and the urge to cause damage. Today the motivation is money -- and there is no greater motivator. Malicious code writers get organized and even traditional organized crime organizations now want a piece of the cake," Gruper said. "Aladdin eSafe is the only product that quickly addresses this dangerous threat that can easily enter organizations through something as basic as employee Web browsing."

Significant Aladdin eSafe benefits:

• No other gateway products covers all 4 layers of anti-spyware security
• Anti-virus gateway solutions only provide signatures, a reactive solution
• URL filtering products only block access to spyware download servers on port 80
• Firewalls and IDS products only block limited spyware protocol data or URLs
• eSafe blocks all 'driveby' spyware infections while Web surfing
• Real-time spyware activity monitoring
• Proactive anti-spyware, anti-virus, anti-spam, and malicious code protection in one integrated solution
• Full contnet secureity at over 32Mbps speeds - up to 10 times faster than competing products

Proactive Aladdin eSafe Protection

Aladdin's eSafe features high-performance, proactive content inspection that stops threats and increases employee productivity while reducing the load on corporate bandwidth. eSafe features the Proactive Security Engine (PSE). Using multiple technologies, the PSE enables eSafe to even block most zero-day malicious code. Performance is essential to content security - slow, inefficient solutions cannot be tolerated in today's fast-paced networks. eSafe's NitroInspection™ provides a high-speed solution that efficiently combines operation of all core technologies at the gateway to the organization. Aladdin's eSafe product suite includes eSafe Gateway, eSafe Mail and eSafe Appliance. For more information on eSafe, and the entire family of eSafe content security and anti-spam solutions, visit http://www.Aladdin.com/eSafe/default.asp.

About Aladdin Knowledge Systems

Aladdin is a global provider of software digital rights management (DRM) and enterprise security. Aladdin products include: the HASP® family of hardware and software-based products that flexibly protect, license and distribute software and intellectual property; the USB-based eToken™ device for strong user authentication and e-commerce security; and the eSafe® line of integrated content security solutions that protect networks against malicious, inappropriate and nonproductive Internet-borne content. Visit the Aladdin Web site at http://www.Aladdin.com.

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