Blue Coat Provides Enterprises With First Real-Time Anti-Phishing Protection For The Web

New Technology Protects Enterprises by Assessing Web Links 'On the Fly' for New or Previously Unknown Phishing Sites to Prevent Fraud, Thievery and Identity Theft

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 8 -- Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCSI) , a leader in WAN Application Delivery and Secure Web Gateway, today announced that its Blue Coat(R) WebFilter(TM) for Blue Coat ProxySG(R) appliances now feature Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection. This capability -- an industry first -- can protect enterprise or organization employees by blocking access to phishing Websites or by warning users that they are attempting to open a phishing Web page that could expose them to potential fraud or theft.

Most of the industry's currently available anti-phishing solutions provide protection solely by checking a user's Web URL requests against a database of known phishing sites. Phishing sites, however, are generally short-lived and each day hundreds of new ones appear, so the practice of evaluating a requested page against a database is generally ineffective. Rather than solely depending on a database, the Blue Coat Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection technology is the first to assess a Website "on the fly" and examine it based on proprietary algorithms. This process can even be performed on sites using SSL-encryption.

Phishing: a Growing Threat

Phishing, the practice of luring an unsuspecting person to a counterfeit Website resembling a legitimate site and tricking the user to reveal logins, passwords, credit card information and other private information, has resulted in a growing amount of identity theft, robbery and fraud. According to industry researchers, the average losses from phishing are now over $3,000 per incident and the total damages suffered by users victimized by phishing are well over $1 billion per year. Banking and retail sites, including Amazon.com, Ebay and PayPal, have been some of the most popular for criminals to impersonate with counterfeit sites using phishing schemes.

Phishing begins with a criminal sending a convincing looking email to a person and tricking the user to click on a link to a Web page that fraudulently purports to be a legitimate page from a bank, services company or retailer. A person may be tricked into revealing a user name and password or other information that would then give a criminal access to a bank, credit card or service or retail shopping account. The new Blue Coat Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection technology assesses the Web page being requested as the user clicks on the link. If the page is not found in the Blue Coat WebFilter database, a query is sent to a data center in Blue Coat Labs where the Web page is analyzed automatically in real time. The service will then categorize the page. If the Web page is categorized as a phishing site, the Blue Coat ProxySG appliance will block the requested Web page or warn the user. The entire process can be completed in between 250-750 milliseconds.

Real-Time Protection

Blue Coat Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection technology is the latest addition to the unique Dynamic Real-Time Rating (DRTR) service of the Blue Coat WebFilter product. Similar to the anti-phishing capability, URL requests for brand new or previously undiscovered Websites made by users of the WebFilter product can be assessed in real time and categorized as pornography, gambling, spyware sources or some other possibly dangerous or inappropriate Website. In addition, Blue Coat ProxySG appliances can automatically check for credential discrepancies of secure Websites that could indicate a rouge site.

"Phishing has become a lucrative vocation for criminals, and to date there has been very little standing in its way to thwart its success," said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Blue Coat Systems. "Since the Web is constantly changing, it is important not to rely simply on protection from a static URL database. With new sites constantly popping up, the best protection for Web users comes from the ability to conduct real-time assessment and categorization, such as from Blue Coat Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection technology."

Blue Coat WebFilter

Blue Coat WebFilter is a powerful web filtering solution that runs on Blue Coat ProxySG appliances. It helps enterprises, organizations and service providers protect their users and networks from Internet threats and abuse. While WebFilter utilizes an on-proxy database of over 15 million website ratings representing billions of web pages of real Internet usage, the product also uses DRTR to access and categorize new or previously undiscovered Websites.

Blue Coat ProxySG Appliances

ProxySG appliances protect enterprises or organizations against malware, including Web viruses and spyware, provide URL filtering and manage the use of Internet applications for policy or bandwidth consumption, including instant messaging, streaming media and peer-to-peer file sharing. ProxySG appliances also accelerate business-critical applications or content at the Internet gateway or across an organization's Wide Area Network (WAN).

About Blue Coat Systems

Blue Coat secures Web communications and accelerates business applications across the distributed enterprise. Blue Coat's family of appliances and client-based solutions -- deployed in branch offices, Internet gateways, end points, and data centers -- provides intelligent points of policy-based control enabling IT organizations to optimize security and accelerate performance between users and applications. Blue Coat has installed more than 40,000 appliances worldwide. Blue Coat is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and can be reached at (408) 220-2200 or http://www.bluecoat.com/.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Blue Coat Systems' expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future, and including statements regarding the capabilities and expected performance of Blue Coat Systems' products. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to Blue Coat Systems as of the date hereof, and Blue Coat Systems assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These and other risks relating to Blue Coat Systems' business are set forth in Blue Coat Systems' Form 10-K for the year ended April 30, 2007, and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 31, 2007, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Note: Blue Coat and other applicable product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

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  Steve Schick                                    Carla Chun
  Blue Coat Systems                               Blue Coat Systems
  steve.schick at bluecoat.com                       carla.chun at bluecoat.com
  408-220-2076                                    408-220-2318

  Anne Smith
  Loughlin/Michaels Group for Blue Coat Systems
  anne at lmgpr.com
  408-313-8089