Comission Funds Antiphishing Research

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that the European Commission has awarded funding to Symantec, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Nortel, Katholieke Universiteit (K.U.) Leuven, and Tiscali for critical research in phishing prevention. Being singled out for funding by the European Commission's highly competitive selection process underscores the exceptional research capabilities provided by these organizations.

The goal of the three-year AntiPhish project is to develop antiphishing technologies that help to protect and secure the global email communication infrastructure. With this goal, AntiPhish targets the Information Society Technologies Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) objective aimed at forming scientific, technical, and industrial excellence towards a global dependability and security framework to ensure security, privacy, and trust in complex communication networks and information infrastructures.

"Our AntiPhish consortium is privileged to be part of this important international effort," said Brian Witten, director of government research in Symantec Research Labs. "The research we undertake will leverage the collaborative capabilities of leading research organizations and be driven by the practical, hands-on experience of industry participants who have expertise with fighting spam on a global scale. This new technology will then move from a test laboratory to implementation at Tiscali, one of the largest and most interconnected Internet service providers in the world."

"We are very happy to be part of this joint effort," said Domenico Dato, R&D manager at Tiscali, "The Antiphish research will be among the activities of Tiscali Labs, our research and development hub that was set up for implementing and testing innovative products and services. Being an active part of this project will allow us to provide our customers with state-of-the-art spam and phishing prevention technologies, thus considerably improving their Internet experience."

Each of the five partners will offer a unique and critical contribution to the AntiPhish project. The effort is managed by project coordinator Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the largest organization for applied research in Europe. Fraunhofer IAIS is located in St. Augustin, Germany, and focuses on research on innovative systems for data analysis and information extraction.

Symantec Research Labs is Symantec's global research division and has developed and helped commercialize numerous technologies across Symantec's business areas. Commercialized technologies from the group include the company's recently announced Symantec Database Security, Symantec's first antispam technology, generic exploit blocking technology that proactively blocks fast-spreading threats, and technology to help protect our nation's critical power-grid infrastructure.

K.U.Leuven is the oldest university of the Low Countries and the largest Flemish university. The Leuven, Belgium-based university carries out fundamental and applied research in all academic disciplines. The AntiPhish project is researched by the Legal Informatics and Information Retrieval group of this university.

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world's most critical information. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com.

Tiscali is one of the main independent European telecommunications companies. With one of the largest and most interconnected IP networks in the world, Tiscali is able to supply its customers, residential and business, with a full range of services. Tiscali is headquartered in Cagliari, Italy. More information at www.tiscali.com.

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC)