Check Point Beefs Up Protections For Insider Attacks

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InterSpect 2.0 provides a new spate of solutions to fight worms and viruses and offers network zone segmentation for quarantining problems.

It was expected to be available to solution providers immediately.

According to Tamir Hardof, product marketing manager at the Redwood City, Calif., vendor, the new InterSpect also incorporates further integration with the Check Point Integrity end-point security solution to safeguard networks from attacks introduced inside the network.

The new tool boasts one-click SmartDefense antivirus updates, as well as proactive protection that can recognize and stop the spread of e-mail worms by restricting messages delivered to the network using POP3/IMAP protocols, he said.

Customers also can manage and deploy these offerings from Check Point’s Smart management architecture, and view InterSpect 2.0 logs in the company’s SmartCenter console for easier management of enterprisewide deployments.

http://www.securitypipeline.com/news/51000450;jsessionid=VZQEJTC2HNHI0QSNDBCCKHSCJUMEKJVN

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IT chiefs use scare tactics to tighten security

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The poll of IT network and security administrators in SMEs to determine how they persuade management to change security practice found that almost half of respondents admit to advocating the fear factor. Many respondents indicated that they have to present worst case scenarios involving confidentiality breaches, lost customers or liability charges to justify investments in information security technology.

The use of scare tactics may be prompted by the fact that, according to additional findings from the poll, more than one in four (29 per cent) network administrators claim that senior management rarely, or never, change standard practices in response to security recommendations alone.

However, an encouraging 30 per cent indicated that rational facts, including cost-based analysis, productivity statistics and industry articles, are sufficient to prompt a reaction.

Additionally, 51 per cent of respondents reported that senior management implement changes to security practices based on their recommendations most or all of the time.

“This survey shows that SMEs can vary greatly in their approach to security. Despite high profile attacks and regulatory pressure, a strong security-conscious culture is still not second nature to all organisations,” said Mark Stevens, chief strategy officer at WatchGuard. “While many organisations treat security as a priority from the top down, and are very proactive in their approach, others require more persuasion to implement and update secure practices. To protect against the threat of attack, executive sponsorship is critical. Organisations need to adopt an approach that incorporates not only technology solutions, but ongoing user education as well as development and enforcement of security policies.”

http://www.vnunet.com/news/1158895

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Survey reveals a security disconnect

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The latter, which was rated as the top obstacle to effective information security, was not even on the radar in 2003 when “budget constraints” was the top challenge.

On a more positive note, companies confident about their information security were more likely to have security buy-in at the executive level.

Only 20% of respondents strongly agreed that information security is a CEO-level priority; 34% agreed, 25% were neutral and 20% disagreed or strongly disagreed. For those classified as “confident respondents,” 34% said they strongly agree that data security is a CEO-level priority, while 36% agreed.

“All the CEOs say the right thing — security is important — but when you look at the stats, things like spending, [they’re] not spending like they say they will,” Kaufield said. “That is the disconnect that still seems to be apparent.”

In fact, 61% of the respondents said IT security spending will go up in 2004, and 69% said 2005 will see more spending than 2004.

Numbers like these make Richard Reiner, CEO of FSC Internet Corp., a security solutions provider in Toronto, a tad suspicious of respondents’ truthfulness. “I would suppose that there is still a trend for the individual to answer these questions to put a positive rather than negative face on things,” Reiner said. But Reiner said there are organizations in Canada that do a good job with IT security — financial institutions, insurance companies and telecoms — and “probably don’t need to increase their info-sec spending.”

He added, however, that the Canadian retail sector is a different story. Recently he had a conversation with an executive from a “reasonable-sized” retailer who told Reiner his company had no one responsible for IT security, no IT security budget and no IT security policies.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,96821,00.html

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Epok Poses Alternative For Managing User Access

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In a world dominated by stricter requirements derived from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Homeland Security regulations that limit who can access data, there is a need for a different approach to identity rights management, said Ayman Hariri, president and CEO of Epok.

“The rise of Web services and the consequent breakdown of control has created a requirement for new levels of enterprisewide data control and security,” Hariri said. “Conversely, TDX 4.0 implemented in an SOA provides the highest levels of data controls, even as additional Web services are deployed across the organization.” Given the uniqueness of Epok’s approach, standards play a big role in making sure TDX interoperates on as many levels as possible, Hariri said.

Epok, a Bethesda, Md.-based startup, recently rolled out version 4.0 of Trusted Data Exchange (TDX), which it describes as a platform for managing user-access rights to specific sets of data. Support for Security Assertion Markup Language-based authentication and authorization, as well as support for LDAP 3.0, are also included in version 4.0, according to Epok.

TDX works by providing object labels around classes of data and then managing who has access to use those data objects across multiple applications. This allows IT organizations to limit access to very specific sets of data, rather than relying on user-based permission schemes that are limited to specific files and database tables. Proving that TDX can be deployed without creating undue network latency looks to be an early challenge for Epok, said John Freeman, principal of Mycroft, a New York-based VAR that has deployed secure, directory-enabled identity-management infrastructures for numerous Fortune 100 clients.

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=GAKVCGKQFIDG2QSNDBNCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=51000093

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Metrowerks drives Linux towards automotive industry

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Michael O’Donnell, the director of transportation marketing at Metrowerks, said to ZDNet UK the company made changes to the Linux kernel, drivers and boot sequence to enhance its real-time capabilities, reduce power consumption and speed up boot time.

AGL is not available for public download, but a development kit based on the customised operating system can be downloaded free of charge from the Metrowerks Web site. “We haven’t posted AGL publicly as it won’t run without the development kit and it is custom built for only one piece of hardware. We are working with standards bodies, and are hoping to get the Linux community behind AGL, so that a standardised version can be released in the future,” he said.

The development kit, known as a Board Support Package (BSP), has been optimised for the Total5200 reference implementation — a development platform used by embedded developers to create prototypes of telematics systems.

“By 2010 we expect about 40 percent of new cars to be telematics enabled.”

http://uk.builder.com/programming/unix/0,39026612,39221173,00.htm

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Cisco boost security line-up by acquisition

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The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2005, which ends in January.

Perfigo’s CleanMachines products focus on policy analysis, compliance and access enforcement for PCs. Its technology fits into Cisco’s Network Admission Control (NAC) program, a security architecture that combines virus scanning with network policing to keep attacks from entering the network in the first place. Specifically, CleanMachines is pre-packaged admission control software that recognises users, their devices and roles. It evaluates the security standing of individual PCs and scans for vulnerabilities. Finally, it enforces policy in the network.

Cisco said that CleanMachines has shown great customer appeal in the small to midsized business market and is widely used in educational institutions. “This acquisition further enhances Cisco’s Self Defending Network security strategy of building and deploying proactive and advanced security into the network infrastructure,” Richard Palmer, vice-president in Cisco’s security technology group, said in a statement.

Cisco has been pushing its NAC architecture since last year. In June, it completed the first phase of the launch by making its IP routers NAC-ready. It plans to add the capability to its Ethernet switches and virtual private network concentrators in 2005.

Earlier this week, Cisco announced it is working with Microsoft, which has proposed a competing end-to-end security architecture called Network Access Protection. The two companies have pledged to make their architectures interoperable.

Cisco began building the NAC architecture through an acquisition last year. In January 2003, Cisco announced it would buy Okena in order to provide technology for the “trusted agent,” which sits on users’ PCs and communicates with the Cisco policy server. Last month, it announced the acquisition of Dynamicsoft, a session initiation protocol software developer, and NetSolve, a network management start-up.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/networks/0,39020345,39171015,00.htm

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