Julian Ashbourn

Novell have been around since the very early 1980s and will be associated by many with NetWare and, more latterly, their work in the open source area. With offices around the world, the company is active in many technology areas, including consultancy. It is therefore well placed to understand the eccentricities of network access control, corporate directories, provisioning and such like. Novell have been around since the very early 1980s and will be associated by many with NetWare and, more latterly, their work in the open source area. With offices around the world, the company is active in many technology areas, including consultancy. It is therefore well placed to understand the eccentricities of network access control, corporate directories, provisioning and such like. Dekart’s approach to encryption is innovative, albeit using accepted standards where appropriate. The company offers a range of useful security-related products and utilities, within which Private Disk plays an important part. One of the issues with software encryption systems is that you have to take care to have all the relevant software elements, certificates and so on precisely configured and in place. One little slip-up and you may find yourself locked out of your own data. DESlock+ is a useful and comprehensive collection of encryption tools for Windows environments, packaged in an intuitive, easy-to-use manner. Even comprehensive security at the desktop and network periphery can sometimes be defeated by something as simple as a USB stick or mobile device. But solutions have been few and far between. ProtectDrive encrypts disk drives, either wholly or in part, an approach that may well appeal to organizations or government agencies which run a fleet of laptops, or have multi-user access to fixed workstations. In such cases, concerns about data being misappropriated from the disk drives, should they fall into the wrong hands, can be very real. This is not just a simple plug-and-play product. It is perhaps better thought of as an encryption methodology for those who understand IT security and wish to incorporate robust protection for sensitive data resident on their hard drives or portable media. The use of a token offers interesting possibilities for user authentication and single sign-on to multiple applications. For example, various credentials can be stored on a token and released to applications and services as required. The user may then simply remember a single password for the token which, in turn, will take care of the detailed requirements for each application. This appliance-based solution does just what its name suggests. A capability such as single sign-on must be robustly managed, and Imprivata provides for this with its dedicated appliance and associated agents, which reside on the user’s workstation. Citrix Password Manager is a robust user authentication mechanism that can be used as a standalone application or as part of the Access Suite, which also provides VPN and presentation server capabilities. PortWise’s basic tenet is to protect remote access to organisational assets via a combination of both user and device authorisation. This software provides enterprise-level SSO using either conventional passwords or, preferably, two-factor authentication using the RSA SecureID tokens. The Vintela Authentication Services enable a single log-on for organisations that have a mixture of Windows, Unix and Linux resources. This product is based upon a substantial rack-mount hardware appliance running Linux, and a Windows-based console and reporting capability with which to administer the system. Agents are then placed on target machines across the network and acknowledged at the console. This comprehensive product seems to offer a great deal: event monitoring and management; intrusion detection; comprehensive reporting and analysis. All this, plus three printed manuals, an installation guide, user guide and programming guide. This software-based console collates security-related information into a central entity, in order to enable analysis and response. The open source philosophy is still gaining ground. But for some, it still smacks less of enterprise-level IT than the enthusiast working alone in their shed at night.

Ecora Enterprise Auditor 3.5 is a comprehensive package tailored to fit into most contemporary IT environments.

Auditing software requirements will naturally vary between organizations. In many cases, a relatively straightforward approach will be all that is necessary. But sometimes you might want a higher level of analysis and control.