Backbone Security has announced an updated implementation of its network security appliance for detecting steganography in real-time. The Steganography Analyzer Real-time Scanner, StegAlyzerRTS, developed in Backbone's Steganography Analysis and Research Center (SARC) purports to be the only commercially available real-time steganography detection system in the world. The latest generation of StegAlyzerRTS is capable of operating on networks with throughput of 100Mbps.

Digital steganography is an Internet era version of an information hiding technique that dates back to the days of Ancient Greece. Using digital steganography, a file can be embedded within, or appended to, another file in such a way that it cannot be seen or heard. Unlike cryptography, which translates information into an unintelligible sequence of letters and numbers, steganography conceals the very existence of the information.

One result of the economic downturn is that insider theft of sensitive information is increasing at an alarming pace. Insiders can use any of the 1,000+ steganography applications available on the Internet as freeware or shareware to steal personal identification information or intellectual property, for example. The current generation of network security appliances does not detect insider use of steganography.

StegAlyzerRTS detects insiders downloading any of the 768 digital steganography applications currently in the SARC's archives. Detecting this type of insider activity is an early warning indicator the insider is planning to steal sensitive information. The system also has the capability to detect insiders using selected steganography applications through a unique signature-based detection model. .