University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Cyber Security Launches Internet Security Incubator

PRESS RELEASE

San Antonio Texas, November 18, 2008 -- The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Institute for Cyber Security (ICS) today announced the launch of its new Internet security incubator. As part of the launch, ICS also announced it has selected two San Antonio start-ups, Denim Labs and SafeMashups Inc. as the first companies entering the incubator. The incubator was developed to commercialize promising technologies that address major cyber security and privacy issues. The Institute for Cyber Security and the incubator have brought together some of the leading business and technical minds in computer security in a way that will cement UTSA's position as one of the country's leading academic hubs for cyber security and enhance the local economy by attracting entrepreneurs from across the nation to take advantage of all the resources and opportunities offered by ICS.

"Public and private investment in sponsored cyber security research results in the creation of technology, inventions, and ideas," said Dr. Robert W. Gracy, Vice President for Research at UTSA. "By offering local entrepreneurs access to University resources and providing a forum for researchers to transform their research into marketable business ventures, we enable students, faculty, and entrepreneurs to commercialize their ideas, produce successful, financially viable and freestanding businesses and create additional jobs in the community."

ICS will offer selected companies vital resources such as access to the ICS labs and its extensive body of research and the expertise of ICS advisors and University staff to support everything from product development to marketing to strategic guidance to office and administrative support. By leveraging the ICS incubator to expedite its commercialization efforts, incubator companies will fast track their product development efforts and expedite time to capital, market, and profitability.

The ICS incubator is structured to work with both innovations developed at UTSA, as well as to work with entrepreneurs who could benefit from the expertise and resources of researchers at UTSA. To become a part of the program, participants must agree to significant collaboration with ICS (or other UTSA) staff. In exchange, the ICS incubator will provide resources such as:

* Access to entrepreneurial researchers with a proven ability to innovate, and bring products to market * Access to seed capital * Access to experience in the life cycle of start ups; from 'ideas' to 'exits', and everything in between * Support with Intellectual Property protection (patents, software, etc.) * Infrastructure (office and administrative) support

"One thing I learned from establishing and running CERIAS is that the more people dedicated to enhancing the practice of computer security, the better," said Gene Spafford, Executive Director, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue University. Spafford is the Executive Director of the ICS Founders Board, and was instrumental in helping UTSA create ICS. "I am honored to be involved with the Institute for Cyber Security at UTSA -- it is a welcome addition to the academic community. ICS has strong institutional and local support, world-class leadership, and enthusiastic community support -- all critical elements for long-term success. I am particularly impressed with the launch of the ICS incubator, which has already begun working with some very interesting young companies in the application security space."

Denim Labs and SafeMashups - San Antonio's Next Wave of Technology Innovators

Denim Labs is a new venture created as a spin-off from Denim Group LLP, an IT consultancy specializing in custom software development, systems integration, and application security. The Denim Group serves a national and international client base of commercial and public sector organizations in industries including financial services, banking, insurance, healthcare and defense. Denim Labs was created to commercialize leading edge technology developed at the Denim Group to provide non-intrusive real time detection of attacks on PHP-based websites.

SafeMashups is a fledgling company founded to provide the level of security needed for enterprises to strategically leverage mashups for business purposes. With patent-pending technology that provides a trust infrastructure for companies to safely mash up multiple applications, SafeMashups is strongly positioned to stake out a piece of the growing Web 2.0 applications market, predicted by Forrester Research to reach $4.6 billion globally by 2013.

"This is the culmination of years of hard work between UTSA, security companies in San Antonio, and the Department of Defense institutions that reside in our community" said John Dickson, Principal at Denim Group, a San Antonio-based consultancy that builds and secures software applications for Fortune 500 clients. "The ICS incubator will help identify promising security technologies that exist at or are close to UTSA and will accelerate getting the best of these technologies to market."

The incubator will be a part of the Institute of Cyber Security which is led by its Executive Director, nationally renowned scholar, Dr. Ravi Sandhu. The incubator itself will be led by Ravi Ganesan, a seasoned technology executive and entrepreneur.

About ICS

The Institute for Cyber Security has a mission of world class research, with commercialization. Founded in June 2007 and funded as part of the State of Texas's Emerging Technology Fund, the Institute is led by world renowned scholar Dr. Ravi Sandhu and is staffed by leading researchers and senior software architects who are immersed in emerging Internet security issues. The Institute consists of three units: ICS Labs, a nationally reputed center for academic research, ICS Incubator which has been established with a mission to make San Antonio a fertile breeding ground for security companies, and the ICS Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), which leverages San Antonio's IAS skills as part of the solution to the nation's homeland security needs.

About UTSA

The University of Texas at San Antonio is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Texas and the second largest of nine academic universities and six health institutions in the UT System. As a multicultural institution of access and excellence, UTSA aims to be a premier public research university providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment. UTSA serves more than 28,400 students in 64 bachelor's, 46 master's and 21 doctoral degree programs in the colleges of Architecture, Business, Education and Human Development, Engineering, Honors, Liberal and Fine Arts, Public Policy, Sciences and Graduate School. Founded in 1969, UTSA is an intellectual and creative resource center and a socioeconomic development catalyst for Texas and beyond.