November 16, 2007

WiredTree Releases ServerShield 2 Security and Optimization Suite

CHICAGO. WiredTree (http://www.wiredtree.com), a leading provider of Managed Dedicated and Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting solutions, announced today it has released the latest version of its comprehensive software and security suite, ServerShield 2.

"We had three goals when designing the latest version of ServerShield: harden security, prevent spam, and increase performance and reliability," said Zac Cogswell, WiredTree president. "It works beautifully for both administrator and end users, saving them both time and money."

WiredTree hardens security by installing a firewall, bruteforce detection, HTTP intrusion and DDOS protection. First the software establishes that the system isn't running any software it shouldn't, and then tweaks the configuration of the site.s software to increase security. All told, there are over 50 steps in the security-hardening process.

ServerShield 2 prevents spam through a customized spam filtering. It first hardens the mail servers. configuration against various spammer tricks, and then configures it to use an optimized selection of Realtime Blocklists. Next, the software configures SpamAssassin with customized, additional functionality and rulesets that greatly increase its detection capabilities, including OCR technology that can filter image and PDF spam.

ServerShield increases users. server performance by tweaking Apache, MySQL, and PHP configurations, as well as low-level system settings to improve performance. It increases reliability through the installation and monitoring many commonly used web applications, including FFMpeg, GD, ImageMagick, commonly used PHP modules, Ruby, and others.

"There is nothing else on the market that comes close to the depth and usability of ServerShield," said Cogswell. "It takes a normal server and transforms it into a highly secure, high-performance system. This is all transparent to the end-user, and it saves them valuable resources since they don't need to hire a System Administrator or spend hours configuring it themselves. Users don't need to worry about maintenance either - the system is constantly monitored and updated by WiredTree staff."

The software was developed in-house using a combination of open source software and proprietary code, and was designed based on specific client feedback WiredTree received after the ServerShield.s initial release. Users wanted to be able to easily use FFMpeg-related functionality in their sites, so WiredTree added it. The company also adapted improved spam filtering that included OCR technology and checksum-based filtering technology.