Announcement

London, UK - 21 April 2003 - The Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation Category has this year been conferred on mi2g, the world leader in digital risk, for the development of Bespoke Security Architecture™. DK Matai, Executive Chairman of mi2g, will be present at the announcement of the award on 22nd April at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.

Bespoke Security Architecture™ (BSA) is a highly innovative approach to enterprise-wide security based on the Digital Risk Management methodology pioneered at mi2g primarily as a result of its interaction with government agencies as well as the global banking, insurance and reinsurance industries.

"We are absolutely delighted to receive such recognition for our Bespoke Security Architecture," said DK Matai, who founded the firm in October 1995 while still a PhD student at Imperial College, London. "It underlines the importance of improving corporate security measures holistically, paying as much attention to the human, legal and insurance dimensions as to the technology. This approach has saved time and cut cost in large scale deployments."

mi2g's digital risk management products enable financial institutions and government agencies to identify operational risk more precisely than has traditionally been the case, and allocate the necessary resources to mitigate that risk more efficiently.

BSA tools provide a comprehensive risk management solution, which bring together firewalls, other defensive structures, and automated intelligence techniques with legal, human resource and company policies. The tools consist of five components:

DRM - The Digital Risk Matrix™ visualises the risk associated with integrated digital solutions in a unique way and allows risk interpretation by decision-makers without any requirement for technical or engineering expertise.

CCR - The Contingency Capability Radar™ is an ISO 17799-based online platform, containing tools and templates to assess and graphically visualize the business continuity capability of the entire enterprise, including subsidiaries.

SIPS - Security Intelligence Products and Systems Database™ has the latest information on over 7,000 hacker groups and maintains a record of over 180,000 individual hacking events over the last seven years. SIPS is the world's largest hacker attack and groupings database cited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Computer Crime Survey in 2002.

eDFi - The electronic Data Fort Initiative™ is a secure data vaulting service which allows users to access their critical personal and business information anywhere and at anytime via hand held devices, the internet and interactive digital television.

KMODS - The Knowledge Management and Objects Database System™ has been designed for configuration management to enable recovery in the event of a major emergency where human and material assets are irrecoverably scattered over a large area and severe loss of life has occurred.

Background

DK Matai developed the idea of "The Creation and Protection of Online Wealth" in 1995 as part of his PhD simulations and software models. By late 1996, after a number of the early experimental online communities called "Lounges" had been hacked, the importance of migration to secure, hacker-resistant and tamper-proof online platforms was recognised. This is in essence the origin of the Bespoke Security Architecture range of tools, which extends beyond the existing online protection components on offer from security product vendors.

Benefits

Budgeting - Using BSA, customers can channel digital security expenditure more effectively, taking into account not just hardware and software but also legal, personnel, training and insurance considerations, enabling them to work more effectively with fewer staff.

Cost cutting and Time saving - mi2g's own experience demonstrates that the prevention of problems rather than their cure significantly reduces inappropriate actions and their consequences. Technological innovation in the monitoring and continuous surveillance of network traffic including emails cuts the overall downtime cost and reduces the wastage of management time. The same policies and practices have delivered similar efficiencies across different client sets.

Enterprise Relationship Management - BSA implementation increases clients' awareness of the contribution that customers, shareholders, employees and suppliers make both to adding value and corporate risk. BSA profiles all four categories of value and risk contributors, examining and analysing in-house, downstream and upstream liabilities and risks. This helps to increase efficiency of business processes by eliminating interface points and improving response times.

"We are honoured to receive the Queen's Award for innovation this year," concludes DK Matai. "The credit for this award must go to mi2g personnel and senior consultants as well as our clients, shareholders and suppliers who have worked together with us as such a close knit team over the last seven years. Thank you."

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For further information please contact mi2g Intelligence Unit