RFA Partners with Avinti to Deliver Crimeware, Virus Protection

RFA Partners with Avinti to Deliver Crimeware, Virus Protection to Offer Highest Level "First-Instance" E-mail Outbreak Protection for Hedge-Fund Companies

New York, NY - March 27, 2006

Avinti Inc., a leading provider of e-mail outbreak protection and Richard Fleischman & Associates (RFA), the leading network and business continuity solutions provider to the hedge-fund community, today announced a new partnership to go beyond day-zero and deliver the highest level of "first-instance" e-mail outbreak protection for hedge-fund companies.

Striving to provide leading-edge technology in an industry where highly valuable financial information must be kept secure against new and unknown threats, RFA has partnered with Avinti to provide the most complete protection available against first-instance e-mail borne threats. By employing Avinti's iSolation Server, which uses virtual machine technology to test suspicious e-mail attachments at the gateway, RFA can stop Trojan horses, spyware, key loggers and targeted attacks from stealing sensitive financial information.

As a leader in IT consulting and business solutions to more than 300 hedge fund companies, RFA works with highly confidential information that must be safeguarded at all times. Managing anywhere from $250 million to $8 billion in assets each, these hedge fund companies demand the most sophisticated IT security for their e-mail systems so that they can make investment decisions with the most up-to-date information. In addition, these companies must make certain that sensitive financial information is kept secure to guard against hackers who would steal data and resell it on the electronic black market, as well as to comply with government regulations.

"This partnership with Avinti provides our hedge fund clients with the confidence of having uninterrupted access to their e-mail platform to make critical decisions, as well as knowing that their financial and propriety information is safe from those who would use it for specific, criminal purposes," said Richard Fleischman, president of RFA. "Using the iSolation Server will allow RFA to continue to provide its leading IT consulting and business solutions by providing a proactive defense against the rising tide of crimeware and unknown threats."

Avinti's virtual machine technology provides a proactive approach to e-mail security by observing the actual behavior of incoming attachments at the e-mail gateway in a secure representation of the desktop environment prior to end-user delivery. Virtual machine observation tests messages for demonstrated malicious behavior and prevents end-users from unintentionally opening dangerous e-mail or being tricked into opening messages using social engineering techniques. Compared to heuristics and signature update approaches, virtual machine technology offers organizations the only day-zero protection to stop malware at 'instance one', providing a much more effective solution with drastically fewer false positives.

"No organization is immune from the onslaught of e-mail attacks designed to compromise IT systems for the express purpose of making money through criminal activity," said Terry Dickson, chief executive officer at Avinti. "The iSolation Server stops the first instance of malicious e-mail, providing RFA.