Las Vegas
While news of real or perceived cyberterrorism threats continues to fill the media, technology vendors here were scrambling to market new products designed to help companies reduce or neutralize threats to their businesses.
The insurance and financial services industries, in particular, deal with huge volumes of sensitive data, including personal health and financial information. Data protection standards mandated by federal legislation, along with consumer cries for privacy and security, have made this a hot issue in the technology arena.
The products–including firewalls, intrusion detection software and hardware devices–were introduced at Fall Comdex 2002, the annual technology exposition for the computer industry, held last month.
Westinghouse Electric Company (a business unit of British Nuclear Fuels) announced the release of version 3.05 of its StatePointPlus software suite. According to Monroeville, Pa.-based Westinghouse, the software "provides organizations with a workable, scalable, and continuous protective strategy for pinpointing and rectifying unauthorized alterations in systems and data across the enterprise–before, during and after security breaches."
Westinghouse said the technology also detects and eradicates "sneaky" threats, such as Trojan horses and worms.
StatePointPlus delivers control over network and security systems, said Westinghouse. "It reduces operational costs and mitigates business risks, while providing security at no additional cost."
From a central console, systems administrators and security administrators can remotely "control the attributes of every software object in every computer on a network," the company stated. The software continuously diagnoses systems and enforces baseline parameters set by the administrators. "By managing computers at this level, IT organizations can cut support costs and production losses while simultaneously speeding change to strategically needed technologies," Westinghouse added.
StatePointPlus 3.05 is currently available for Microsoft Windows 2000, NT and XP environments. The new version also makes these capabilities available for the first time to users on Solaris operating systems, the company said.
Pricing information was not provided. Further details are available at www.StatePointPlus.com.
Zone Labs Inc. announced a major upgrade to Zone Labs Integrity, software designed to protect PCs and data in networked environments.
"Integrity 2.0 hardens organizations defenses against hackers, Trojan horses and targeted attacks with its centrally managed features," including firewall and application controls, said San Francisco-based Zone Labs. The system integrates transparently with network infrastructure to deliver policy management, enforcement and monitoring, the company added.
"Endpoint security is a mainstream issue for todays enterprise; facing a landscape of evolving risk, customers understand that each vulnerable PC and the important data it contains must be secured," said Frederick Feldman, vice president of marketing for Zone Labs.
Zone Labs said Integrity 2.0 provides proactive protection from targeted attacks and network infiltration. It also guards against these risks whether one accesses the network from a remote location via a virtual private network or from inside the corporate firewall. "Integrity 2.0 makes it easier for administrators to design and enforce consistent security policies," the company added.
In addition to preventing Trojan horses, spyware and other malicious programs from stealing data, Integrity 2.0 adds component control to ensure that only authorized and authenticated application components can load, the company continued.
Pricing for Integrity 2.0 varies depending on volume purchased and configuration, said Zone Labs. Pricing begins at $65 for an end-user license, with an Integrity server license included. The Integrity server supports Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Advanced Server systems, while Integrity clients run on Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and XP machines.
Further information is available at www.zonelabs.com.
iolo technologies, LLC showed its System Shield utility, which helps prevent identity theft, security attacks, corporate espionage and malicious extraction of private files.
According to Pasadena, Calif.-based iolo, identity theft is becoming the worlds fastest growing crime, affecting an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people annually. "The FBI is also investigating an increasing number of cases of corporate espionage in which hackers and disgruntled employees have obtained and sold confidential company data and trade secrets, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars," the company said.
System Shield works on all Windows operating systems (95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP) and with all types of hard drives and windows formats, said iolo. The software comes in both Personal and Professional editions.
The Personal Edition acts as a shield against any software-based attacks, the company explained. It purges the names of deleted files from directory structures and overwrites deleted file contents. Users can automatically schedule unattended data cleanup operations.
