Sygate Technologies Inc. has given its personal firewall software more security features and tuned up its management to make it easier for enterprises to set security policies and generate custom reports about firewall activity.
Sygate Secure Enterprise (SSE) 2.0 software now supports intrusion detection and enables enterprises to set policies that foil attacks even if these attacks are of a form not seen before.
SSE 2.0 consists of a software security agent, which runs on Windows PCs and laptops, and server software that runs on Windows NT or 2000 servers. Policies set by the server-based management software are pushed to the enforcement agents when their host machines connect to the network. The security agent performs firewall and intrusion detection duties.
Policy options are so numerous, Sygate says, that intruders using a new form of attack that is not specifically shielded against will fail because the destructive acts they hope to commit are likely to require transactions that the policies have blocked.
SSE 2.0 also offers strong central management that enables network administrators to set policies once on a workstation and have the policies distributed to agents according to the security group they have been assigned to, says Chris Christiansen, an analyst with IDC.
These agents also can be locked down so users of individual machines cannot alter their settings or disable them. "You still have to distribute the agent to each PC or laptop," Christiansen says, "but central management of the policies makes the task a lot more approachable."
Christiansen says he expects other vendors to combine firewalls with other security, but he declined to name them.
The SSE 2.0 agent installed on remote machines periodically checks in with the security server to find whether the security profile for the particular user has changed. If so, the changes are downloaded and enforced. So if an employee gets promoted and no longer needs access to a certain application, authorization to use that application can be rescinded via SSE management software.
Alcatel plans to use SSE 2.0 to protect laptop and PC connections to its corporate network via a VPN, according to Dan Hale, network administrator for Alcatel.
Policies can be set for individual users or for machines. So, for instance, a pool of loaner laptops can be given a blanket set of security policies so that regardless of who is using them, they still have the same policies.
This feature is also useful in protecting LAN-based machines such as servers, says Hale. So if an administrator logs in to a server, logging in will not change the security profile of the machine and potentially compromise the data on the server, says Hale.
In addition, SSE 2.0 can generate custom reports based on log data gathered via SSE 2.0 agents.
SSE 2.0 supports Windows 95 and 2000 operating systems, as well as Windows NT. Sygate plans to add support for Linux as well as PDA operating systems within a year.
The software is available now and priced on a per-seat basis. A laptop license costs US$80 to $90; workstation software costs $60 per seat, including server software.
Sygate is at http://www.sygate.com
