Press Release

SignaCert Announces New Patent Grant

May 4, 2009

Portland, OR — SignaCert, the leading provider of IT Compliance solutions based on whitelisting methods, today announced the issuance of a new Patent covering advanced whitelist methods.

On February 3, 2009 the US Patent and Trademark Office issued patent number 7,487,358 B2 to the inventors Starnes, Bleckmann and Andersen. Entitled "Method to Control Access Between Network Endpoints Based on Trust Scores Calculated from Information System Component Analysis", the new patent builds on the work acknowledged with the issuance of United States patent number 7,272,719 issued September 18, 2007. New and protected inventions in the most recent grant include:

• Aggregating valid software signatures (hashes) into a database for the purpose of validating the integrity of individual files as well as full system state
• Calculation of an overall system or device trust score based on the comparison of specific files or data against the valid signatures in the database
• Exchange of overall trust score between two or more devices in order that each participating device be able to determine to what extent peer or controlling devices are in a known and trusted state.

"We are very pleased with the speed of PTO issuance of these key patent grants," said Wyatt Starnes, Founder of SignaCert. "It speaks loudly to our early and definitive leadership in the emerging IT whitelist space. The team is gratified to see this work recognized with strong IP protection as these methods become more mainstream."

SignaCert recently announced standardized schemas, or Data Exchange Formats for whitelist exchange developed in conjunction with Microsoft. In addition to precise heterogeneous software measurement data, these standards define a "Trust Score" for individual data elements.

According to Starnes, "Individual software data element trust scores are useful to understand the provenance of code elements. The newly issued patent covers how these trust scores can be weighed and aggregated into a software stack or platform score, where that score can be used to determine rights and privileges for one business service to exchange with another. We are pleased that PTO recognizes our inventions in these areas by rewarding two patents to support these crucial methods."

Companies interested in licensing patents, content or other intellectual property should contact SignaCert at [email protected].

About SignaCert

SignaCert is the leading provider of end-to-end and partner-based IT compliance solutions based on known-provenance technology. These methods allow SignaCert's direct customers to rapidly achieve and prove continuous compliance for the systems that deliver critical business services. The SignaCert architecture is designed to seamlessly integrate with existing change processes and continuously monitor critical business services without disruption.

Founded in 2004 by 38-year IT security and compliance industry veteran Wyatt Starnes, SignaCert has assembled a world class team of industry leaders with hands-on IT experience.

SignaCert's end-customers span a wide variety of industries, including financial services, government, and healthcare.