InterMute - Record Number of InterMute CWShredder Downloads in March

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Record Number of InterMute CWShredder Downloads in March

More Than 2 Million CWShredder Downloads Show CoolWebSearch Spreading
from the Americas to Asia

BRAINTREE, MA — April 4 , 2005 — InterMute Inc., a leading developer of best-in-class PC protection and productivity software for corporations and consumers, today announced that it recorded for the month of March more than 2 million downloads of CWShredder™ on its Web site, www.intermute.com. CWShredder is widely regarded as the most effective way to detect and remove the treacherous browser hijacker CoolWebSearch and its many variants on PCs.

CWShredder is available both as a stand-alone freeware application and as an integral component of InterMute’s consumer and corporate products, SpySubtract® PRO and SpySubtract Enterprise Edition. The built-in spyware reporting capabilities of CWShredder track the emergence of new CoolWebSearch variants, which are electronically sent to InterMute’s Threat Research Center.

In March, excluding the United States, the Top 10 countries reporting CoolWebSearch spyware to InterMute are: Japan, Poland, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Spain, France, Canada and Brazil.

“We recently have seen a dramatic uptick in CWShredder reports from all over the world. Spyware has no boundaries. PC users from North America to Europe to Asia are experiencing computer degradation, disruption of Internet connectivity, privacy threats and adware annoyances,” said CEO and founder Ed English of InterMute. “The spike in CWShredder downloads can be attributed to two main reasons. The brand name CWShredder itself is becoming more well-known globally. And, there is a sudden surge of CoolWebSearch variants, and both consumers and individual employees at companies need the best defense out there to combat the most difficult-to-remove spyware—CWShredder.”

Many of the CoolWebSearch incidence reports come from IT professionals. “InterMute has always known that IT professionals have made CWShredder a standard part of their IT tool set,” said English. “However, home users are also being inundated with tenacious forms of CoolWebSearch.”

Spyware writers themselves are technically advanced. CoolWebSearch represents a new generation of malware that mutates to defeat conventional anti-spyware software. One new and sophisticated variant of CoolWebSearch that CWShredder defeats is homepage browser hijacker HomeSearch. HomeSearch is implemented as a BHO (browser helper object) and installs itself with the load process along with Internet Explorer. HomeSearch also exhibits self-preservation and camouflaging behaviors by randomly renaming itself and its components to avoid detection.

For IT professionals, a free trial version of SpySubtract Enterprise Edition powered by CWShredder is available at http://www.intermute.com/products/index.html.

For home users, a free trial version of SpySubtract PRO is available at http://www.intermute.com/products/spysubtract.html.

In addition, a free full version of CWShredder is available at www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html.

About InterMute

Founded in 1999 and privately held, InterMute is a leading provider of software that enhances PC protection and productivity for organizations and consumers. Millions of PC users rely on InterMute’s portfolio of Subtract® brand products to defend against spyware, spam, offensive Web content and intrusive Internet advertising. InterMute is based in Braintree, MA. For further information, visit www.intermute.com.

InterMute, SpySubtract and CWShredder are trademarks or registered trademarks of InterMute, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.