At a time when IT security looks most vulnerable, Compaq has made a bold statement at this week's CeBIT exhibition in Hannover by saying that its servers are safe from hack attacks. The boast, from Compaq GmbH chief executive, Peter Mark Droste, could be seen as a challenge to the hacker community. However, Droste reckons AOL did not fall foul of the recent Denial of Service attacks because it uses Compaq machines. "Although it is one of the top sites on the Internet," says Droste, "AOL.com was not concerned by the attacks the week before last. Do you know why? Because AOL is assisted by a Compaq server." The company plans to present firms with solutions it says will protect them from such attacks. It will also be showing new models from its Armada notebook family, the designer-PC "iPaq" and some LAN solutions. Compaq also announced that the "Toaster", launched in the US at the end of last year, is to be made available on the German market by the end of the second quarter at the latest. No dates were available for the UK. For full coverage, see ZDNet UK's CeBIT 2000 special. For full coverage, see the Denial of Service roundup.