[09/18/02]Luke Koestler’s Vicksburg computer company is still new, but may be standing at a door to expansion that will soon open.

Now known as Seventh Knight Software, Koestler’s company began today showing one of its products at the Homeland Security Technology Expo and Conference in Washington, D.C.

The conference and expo will feature hundreds of companies showing their wares to representatives of hundreds of private companies and government agencies today and Thursday. The conference is hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of Homeland Security.

Koestler, 22, is a Vicksburg native and the son of Danny and Lynn Koestler.

In the past two years, Koestler and his fledgling company have expanded beyond the computer security program it offered when formed two years ago to a sophisticated system to protect individual computers and computer networks from unauthorized use and, especially, computer viruses.

The process authentication program has undergone an extensive evaluation by U.S. Army laboratories and has received a very favorable evaluation, Koestler said.

“It’s for PC security,” he said.

Koestler and Dr. Brian Hudson, one of his investors, explained that most software designed to defeat viruses lists all known viruses and bans them from the system.

“That way you have a window of three or four days or weeks before someone develops a patch’ and downloads it to you,” Hudson said, adding the interval between the development of the virus program and the cure leaves computers and systems vulnerable.

“This works by listing what’s allowed to run and keeping everything else out,” Koestler said.

Seventh Knight’s program began as a program to protect a large company or agency’s whole computer network by being installed on a server, but it has since been adapted for use by small companies and home users of personal computers.

The home version was announced on the Internet Friday with no fanfare. As of Tuesday afternoon 1,213 people had downloaded the program and tried it, completely amazing Koestler and his associates.

He hopes some of the people who have tried the home version will be at the Expo and will be interested in the commercial version.

In addition to keeping viruses from attacking computer systems or individual computers, Seventh Knight’s product can also help a system administrator keep track of who tries to load an unauthorized program, such as a game, or who gains access to information he or she shouldn’t have and then keeps a record of what’s done with it.

For example, Koestler said, if an employee gains access to some of his company’s or agency’s classified information and loads it onto a compact disc or e-mails it to someone, there is a record of each of the transactions. All of the transactions can then be traced by the system administrator.

“Our market is anyone who uses a PC with Internet access,” Koestler said, adding it does not make any difference if the end user is a corporation, government agency, small business or a home PC user needing to protect his computer from viruses and to prevent his children from gaining access to something they shouldn’t.

Koestler said the main thing his product does is put humans back in control of their computers by allowing a person to decide what is allowed to operate.