Peiter ''Mudge'' Zatko, Information Security Expert -- Who Warned that Hackers ''Could Take Down the Internet in 30 Minutes'' -- Returns to BBN Technologies.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- BBN Technologies, an advanced technology and research and development firm, announced today that Peiter Zatko has re-joined the company as a division scientist. Mr. Zatko joins a group of over 75 scientists and engineers at BBN who perform leading edge research and development to protect Department of Defense data and systems and are also well known for their IP security expertise. At a time when cyber threats are occurring at an unprecedented rate, Mr. Zatko is focused on anticipating and protecting against the next generation of information and network security threats to government and commercial networks.

Known to the security community as "Mudge," Mr. Zatko has a long track record of success in the security industry, most recently as founding scientist of Intrusic, Inc., the first security software company to target the 'Insider Threat.' He is renowned for running L0pht Heavy Industries (and later founding @stake, Inc.), a hacker research collaborative and consultancy that released security tools such as L0phtCrack, now the industry standard Microsoft password-auditing tool.

"It's exciting to be back at BBN, working alongside the very people who helped invent the Internet and defending against some of the toughest information warfare threats," said Mr. Zatko. "I've often said that my personal mission is to 'make a dent in the universe' and what better place to do that than at BBN, where the focus is on protecting vital networks from the most critical and challenging attacks."

Mr. Zatko testified before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1998 and warned that, if they were so inclined, any member of L0pht could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes and keep it down for several days. He has also been a witness for the House and Senate Joint Judiciary Oversight committee, and, in 2000, was invited to participate in a security summit with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and ex-Attorney General Janet Reno.

"BBN is currently tackling some of the toughest security problems for our government and high-profile corporations," said Tad Elmer, president, BBN Technologies. "This challenging environment is what people like Mudge find most rewarding."

Mr. Zatko is the developer of L0phtCrack (now LC5), the de-facto Microsoft password auditing tool; AntiSniff, the world's first remote promiscuous system detector that was used across primary Department of Defense entities; Tempwatch, now a distributed component of Linux and BSD distributions; and SLINT, a pioneering tool in automating source code analysis to discover security coding problems.