Sourcefire(R) Awards Two Scholarships Recognizing the Use of Snort(R) as an Educational Tool.

Snort Enables Next Generation of Security Professionals to Build Real-World Expertise

COLUMBIA, Md. -- Open source innovator and Snort([R])creator, Sourcefire, Inc. (Nasdaq:FIRE), a leader in network intrusion prevention, today announced the winners of its third annual Snort Scholarship

"With more than three million downloads to date, Snort not only protects the assets of some of the world's leading organizations, but it is also the one of the leading training tools for providing practical intrusion prevention experience to professionals and students worldwide," said Tom McDonough, Sourcefire President and COO. "Our goal with this scholarship program is to reward the next generation of Snort users, while ensuring that the open source community is continuing to be infused with new ideas and innovations."

To qualify for this award, participants needed to be enrolled in a Snort-certified university that uses Snort or Sourcefire products to protect its network or uses Snort as part of the curriculum in a security class. After receiving hundreds of applications, Sourcefire selected the two winners:

* Michael Burns, who is working on a BS in computer science at Oregon State University. As part of the university's information security team, Michael implements and maintains open source Snort IDS sensors protecting the university network. He is also active in Oregon State's Open Source Lab project and is a volunteer programmer for the One Laptop Per Child Project, an international project with the goal to create a child's laptop costing under $100.

* Huzeyfe Onal, who is working on an academy degree in computer science engineering at Kocaeli University in Kocaeli, Turkey. Huzeyfe uses Snort to protect the university's critical infrastructure and enforce university policies against peer-to-peer networking. He contributes to other Snort-based open source projects, frequently speaks on network security topics at conferences across Turkey, and provides security training to government agencies using Snort as an education tool.

Sourcefire's award-winning Vulnerability Research Team (VRT) works closely with the open source community to develop the official VRT Certified Snort Rules that are distributed on Snort.org. This collaboration results in a much faster response to new threats while maintaining unparalleled quality and performance. Sourcefire VRT Certified Rules continue to be the industry standard with subscriptions for real-time access to rule updates more than doubling over the last year alone.