Promon News

July 2011 - Promon exhibiting and presenting at it-sa 2011

During 11-13 October 2011 Promon was one of the exhibitors at it-sa, the IT Security Expo held in Nuremberg, Germany.

Our two live hacking presentations are available here:

Links to last years presentations are available here.

23rd May 2011 - New members in Promon board of directors

Promon is pleased to announce the appointment of Johan Gjesdahl and Trygve Aasland to the company's board of directors.

Gjesdahl is the CEO of Springfondet, an early-stage investor in Promon. He has experience as Vice President M&A and Business Development at TANDBERG ASA and as Investment Manager at Telenor Venture. Gjesdahl also formed part of the management team of a high-tech startup during the dotcom years. Gjesdahl holds an MBA from Cornell University and an MSc in marine technology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Gjesdahl is the chairman of the board.

Aasland has a long and successful track-record as a manager at leading Norwegian IT companies. From 2005 to 2009 he was the CEO of the IT-security company Norman ASA. He has held a number of key management positions within sales and marketing at TANDBERG ASA. Presently, he is the CEO of Fora Form AS, and also serves on the board of Questback AS. Aasland holds a Master of General Business from BI (Siviløkonom).
Read more

May 2011 - Zeus Source Code Leaked

The source code of Zeus, one of the most prolific banking Trojans has been released online. Promon researchers have had a closer look at the actual code and shares some of their findings here.
Read more

7th March 2011 - Finansavisen: Know what you do when online banking (In Norwegian)

(click the picture for a larger version)

In this article details and security issues around the actual SpyEye trojan attack that hit several Norwegian banks in February 2011 are addressed.

Security experts agree that using traditional security solutions like authentication, encryption and anti-virus are not enough for offering sufficient protection for online banking users.

Session based security solutions are a necessary part of online banking security. They are integrated in, and dedicated to the service they are protecting. It gives service providers the possiblity to raise the security level on the client without taking any responsibility for the client system as such.

March 2011 - Promon partnering with Move

Promon is proud to announce a partnership with Move. Move is one of the leading Norwegian providers of design, implementation, support and maintenance services within IT-infrastructures, as well as cost effective IT-solutions for both public and private organisations.

Vice President, Leif B. Paulsen explains: "Our partnership with Promon gives us a new tool in our security toolkit. Promon provides new and very exiting methods for securing Web applications."

The actual partnership started in August 2010. We are looking forward to continue working together on increasing the IT-security level at companies on the Norwegian market.
Read more about Move here (In Norwegian)

March 2011 - Promon partnering with Watchcom

Promon is proud to announce a partnership with Watchcom. Watchcom is a leading provider of information security in Norway.

The actual partnership started in August 2010. We are looking forward to continue working together on increasing the IT-security level at companies on the Norwegian market.
Read more about Watchcom here

February 2011 - Shield Proactively Blocking SpyEye Trojan

23.02.2011 - During last week a trojan identified as SpyEye has been targeting Norwegian online banking customers in order to steal money from their accounts. Promon has the technology in place that can proactively protect online banking services against these kinds of attacks.
Read more

February 2011 - ComputerWorld: Promon secures the client side of the cloud (In Norwegian)

Discussions about Cloud Security typically focus on server-side and infrastructure issues and not on client security. While client systems are used to access the actual cloud services. Bad or lacking client security weakens the security level of the total cloud service.

Promon offers integrated client security for cloud services.
Read the article on idg.no (In Norwegian)

December 2010 - Promon press release

Downloads

December 2010 - NRK consults Promon

On the 9th of December it was reported that China is blocking internet access to the international and norwegian news portals of CNN, BBC and NRK.

As IT-security specialists, through its CEO Tom Lysemose Hansen, Promon was consulted by NRK to comment on this situation.
Read more about this on NRK.no

November 2010 - Promon stops Nobel attack

23.11.2010 - During the last days of October 2010, security analysts discovered that the Nobel Peace Prize website had been compromised in a targeted attack. According to Telenor at the time the vulnerability was discovered none of 41 tested anti-virus vendors at Virustotal were capable of detecting either the exploit, or the backdoor component.

Promon has the technology in place to provide 100% proactive detection, which is capable of blocking this attack out of the box without the need for prior knowledge of the exploit.

Both "Finansavisen" (left) and Computerworld (right) picked up this news and decided to write about this.

Following is a demonstration video showing what the actual attack looks like and how Promon stops it.

Link to High resolution version.
Read more about this here

November 2010 - Promon partners with cirosec

Promon is proud to announce their partnership with German cirosec.

cirosec delivers expert IT-security services and solutions to the German market. The experience and expertise of its employees covers the whole range of IT-security from network security, intrusion detection, wireless security, risk management, security analysis to application security.

cirosec appreciates Promon's technology for its effective way of dealing with Trojan- and Spyware attacks. "Even the best server security solutions are put out of play as soon as the client is infected with a Trojan or Spyware. Also Anti-virus and authentication solutions do neither offer sufficient protection against these highly sophisticated attacks on the client side.", cirosec writes in their press release (German).

November 2010 - Promon success with Innovation Norway

On Monday the 15th of November the Norwegian financial newspaper "Finansavisen" dedicated two pages to Promon and their achieved success on the German marked with the help of Innovation Norway.

Click on the image below for a readable scan of the article.

October 2010 - Promon exhibiting at it-sa 2010

During 19-21 October 2010 Promon was one of the exhibitors at IT-sa, the IT Security Expo held in Nüremberg, Germany. Many visited our stand as well as our daily live hacking presentations which are available via the official IT-sa portal.

Tuesday 19th October: Forum red (watch the presentation here)
Wednesday 20th October: Forum red (watch the presentation here)
Thursday 21th October: Forum blue (watch the presentation here)

June 2010 - Promon at OWASP AppSec Research 2010

OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project) is an open community dedicated to enabling organizations to conceive, develop, acquire, operate, and maintain applications that can be trusted.
From the 21st-24th of June, OWASP is arranging their yearly global AppSec conference in Stockholm, which is dedicated to bringing together industry, government, and security researchers and practitioners to discuss the state of the art in application security.
Promon will be presenting at this conference showing by demonstrating Arrow, their tool for client based application testing.
Read more

February 2010 - Promon in the news

The frontpage of ComputerWorlds edition of Friday 12th February 2010 was dedicated to Promon. On page 12 of the major Norwegian IT-magazine an entire page about Promon and its proactive technology was published.
The article shortly describes the background of the company, which technical and marketing achievements Promon has reached, as well as future expectations.

Link to the article (In Norwegian).

January 2010 - Promon Technology blocks zero-day (Aurora) attack out of the box

Since mid of January a specific attack called, Operation Aurora, has been in the news exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (979352). Targeted attacks towards Google used this vulnerability in order to get access to certain Gmail accounts. It turns out that this vulnerability can also be used to gain control over the victims PC, leading to the possible installation of Trojans or the danger of becoming part of a Bot Net.

Microsoft writes on their website: "The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference within Internet Explorer. It is possible under certain conditions for the invalid pointer to be accessed after an object is deleted. In a specially-crafted attack, in attempting to access a freed object, Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution." The Anti-virus industry (including Microsoft) is now working intensively on solutions for mitigating this vulnerability.

While security experts world-wide are working on effective protection against this vulnerability, Promon already has technology in place that proactively protects against unknown attacks in general and Aurora in particular. The Promon technology detects the Aurora attack immediately and dismantles it by shutting down the browser, leaving the system unaffected.

Link to High resolution version.

November 2009 - Promon enters into Partnership with Interexa

Interexa is one of the leading software vendors for financial institutions in the areas of risk management, controlling and operations.
Read more (Partly German)

November 2009 - Promon becomes BankID Partner

Promon has signed a cooperation agreement with BankID and is since November 2009 official BankID Partner.
Read more (In Norwegian)

September 2009 - Promon Sales team extended

The Promon team is extended with yet another experienced sales manager. With specific responsibility for the Nordics, Promon is set to considerably increase activities in this region.

June 2009 - Promon in annual report of Forskningsparken

As one of four success cases Promon is mentioned in the annual report of Forskningsparken.
Read more (In Norwegian)

The article is also published on the website of Forskningsparken.
Read more (In Norwegian)

May 2009 - Promon visible in Germany

Promon and Star Finanz co-presented at the German BSI conference in Bonn.
Read more (In German)

The news of the introduction of Promon's integrated spyware/Trojan protection inside Star Finanz' StarMoney application was picked up by several media, among these a German radio station, Deutschlandfunk.
Read more (In German)

May 2009 - Experienced sales manager joins Promon

The Promon team is extended with an experienced sales manager. We will now step up our sales and marketing efforts considerably.

March 2009 - Breakthrough in application security!

At CeBIT 2009, Promon's customer Star Finanz will release the latest version of their home banking application Star Money. The application comes with Promon Integrated Application Protection. Key features of this solution are:

no separate installation required
same kind of protection, when executing on 64-bit platform.
protecting against man-in-the-application
protecting sensitive data where it is exposed

This constitutes a breakthrough in application security and the protection against 'man-in-the-application' and Spyware attacks. With Promon Integrated Application Protection, it is now possible for:

Software providers to offer secure use of their programs, even on infected systems and regardless of possibly (non-)installed Anti-Virus solutions
Consumers to get software with integrated Spyware protection, i.e. secure programs 'off-the-shelf'

Star Finanz is a leading provider of multi-bank compatible online-banking solutions. It has more than one million customers in the German market using Star Money. Founded in 1997, as an enterprise of the Sparkassen financial group, Star Finanz offers the development, sales and service of innovative client and server products for the financial services sector.
Read more about Star Finanz

January 2009 - Promon Test Team extended

The Promon test team in Pune, India is extended with two test analysts. We welcome Sendil and Jaydeep to our Promon team and look forward to working together.

December 2008 - Experienced IT-executive joins Board of Directors

Dalip Dewan, Division Director R&D at Visma Software ASA has joined the Board of Directors of Promon. We look forward to make use of his valuable input based on his solid technical and commercial background.

Visma is one of the main IT companies in the Nordic region.

October 2008 - Kistefos invests in Promon

Promon has secured its third round of financing through a directed share issue towards Kistefos, and existing shareholders. Kistefos AS is a privately owned investment company located in Oslo, Norway. Kistefos is one of the three top Norwegian venture funds.

The Kistefos investment philosophy is based on long-term value creation through active ownership. By supplying a combination of capital, industrial and financial skills and professional business management, Kistefos seeks to lay the foundations for profitable growth in the companies.
Read more about Kistefos

May 2008 - Signed agreement with Star Finanz

Promon has signed an agreement with German Star Finanz. Star Finanz provides a home banking solution for more than one million users on the German marked.

Facing an increasing threat Star Finanz recognised the need for better security. In the Promon technology Star Finanz found the attractive combination of high security and unaffected usability.

Star Finanz is a leading provider of multi-bank compatible online-banking solutions. Founded in 1997 as an enterprise of the Sparkassen financial group, Star Finanz offers the development, sales and service of innovative client and server products for the financial services sector.
Read more about Star Finanz

April 2008 - Seed capital fund and private investor invest in Promon

Promon has secured its second round of financing. The seed capital fund Springfondet and private investor Arve Saghaug have increased their shareholding in Promon.

Springfondet is a seed capital fund located at Oslo Innovation Center in Oslo, Norway. The fund invests in technology startups across a broad range of industries. As a seed venture investor, Springfondet is often a company's first investor. Springfondet is owned by Oslo Innovation Center and Kistefos.
Read more about Springfondet

March 2008 - Substantial public grant secured

Innovation Norway has approved Promon's IRD-application. The project will significantly shorten the time-to-market for Promon's core technology. The size of the project qualifies it to be one of Innovation Norway's biggest IRD-projects.
Read more about Innovation Norway

February 2008 - Experienced senior developer joins Promon

The Promon team is extended with an experienced senior Developer. He will add valuable experience and knowledge to the Promon development team.

July 2007 - New Offices for Promon

Requirement for more space forced Promon to move. Matching Promon's ambitions and growing potential Nydalen turned out to be the perfect place.

New address is Gjerdrumsvei 12A, N-0484 Oslo, Norway

May 2007 - Seed capital fund and private investor invest in Promon

The seed capital fund Springfondet and private investor Arve Saghaug become shareholders in Promon.

February 2007 - Marketing Manager employed

From the 1st of February Folker den Braber joins the Promon Team. Folker left the position of Research Scientist at SINTEF where he worked in a group specialized on IT security related to modelling and formal languages. Folker has a formal IT background from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands and will be working with sales and marketing for Promon.

September 2006 - Second employee joins Promon

We are happy that Promon is employing its first full time developer from September 2006.

January 2006 - Birkeland Innovation shareholder in Promon

Birkeland Innovation (BI) has been supporting Promon both financially and through professional advice since January 2005. BI is now becoming a shareholder in Promon.

Birkeland Innovation is the technology transfer office at the University of Oslo. Birkeland proactively contribute to build an innovative culture at the university, secure, administer and refine intellectual property rights (IPR) for the University of Oslo, and perform knowledge and technology transfer through licensing and company creation.
Read more about Birkeland Innovation

January 2006 - Promon Limited Company established

After more than 2 years of development and preparations, on the 11th of January 2006 Promon is established as a Norwegian Limited Company.