Keeping your endpoints in line

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: NETWORK PRODUCT TEST RESULTS
06/28/05

Dear security.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Setting and enforcing security policy on your network
  endpoints could be key to making it through your next compliance
  audit
* Links related to Network Product Test Results
* Featured reader resource
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This newsletter is sponsored by Hewlett Packard
Choose the Best Architecture

Learn how controller-based architecture for tape libraries best
meets reliability and interoperability requirements in
enterprise storage area networks. Details include how the
introduction of the HP StorageWorks Extended Tape Library
Architecture defines the next generation of tape libraries in
enterprise SAN environments. Download the white paper now!
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107261
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LICENSE TO KILL

Mainstream companies are starting to reap benefits from
harnessing unused computing power. By lashing together sometimes
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barriers to grid adoption. Find out how to overcome these
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http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107389
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Today's focus:

Keeping your endpoints in line

By Mandy Andress and Rodney Thayer

Setting and enforcing security policy on your network endpoints
could be key to making it through your next compliance audit. In
our Clear Choice Test of endpoint security products that provide
policy enforcement mechanisms, each product was required to
identify systems out of policy compliance and take action to
remediate that condition.

On a more complex level, we created a wish list of policy
enforcement checks the products should offer, including being
able to identify missing operating system and application
patches and noncompliant system security settings, limiting
access to these systems and creating reports to analyze
noncompliant clients and the remediation actions taken to get
them back in line.

We made this wish list with the understanding that no one
product would meet all of our requirements, but were open to
vendors submitting product combinations that collectively did.

Because no security product added to a corporate network should
pose a security risk, we also tried to poke holes in the
products' own security architecture (see story ).

From a field of 13 vendors invited to participate in the test,
Check Point, Cisco, Citadel, InfoExpress, Senforce, Trend Micro
and Vernier Networks (in cooperation with PatchLink) agreed to
let their products be tested. Elemental Security, EndForce,
McAfee, Sygate, SecureWave and StillSecure declined. The Vernier
Networks/PatchLink combination came out on top because of its
sound performance in all categories. This joint submission
excelled in remediation, providing the ability to block network
access and automatically fix out-of-compliance systems, and it
was among the most resilient of the packages tested.

For details on how each vendor faired, please see:
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlprodrev2888>
_______________________________________________________________
To contact:

Andress is president of ArcSec Technologies, a security company
focusing on product reviews and analysis. She can be reached at
mandy@arcsec.com. Thayer is a private network security
consultant in Mountain View, Calif. He can be reached at
rodney@canola-jones.com
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Hewlett Packard
Choose the Best Architecture

Learn how controller-based architecture for tape libraries best
meets reliability and interoperability requirements in
enterprise storage area networks. Details include how the
introduction of the HP StorageWorks Extended Tape Library
Architecture defines the next generation of tape libraries in
enterprise SAN environments. Download the white paper now!
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107260
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Clear Choice Tests archive:
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/index.html
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FEATURED READER RESOURCE
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technology category. Deadline: July 8. Enter today:
<http://www.networkworld.com/survey/easform.html?net>
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