Wave of New Security Products Arrives at Interop

A litany of new security applications and services were among the many new products rolled out in connection with the ongoing Interop New York conference, being held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center Sept. 18-22.

Among the security industry players introducing new software at the conference was StillSecure, a software maker in the NAC (network access control) space, which announced version 5.0 of its Safe Access package, a product that aims to help enterprises better secure their IT operations by closely examining devices that attempt to log-on to their networks.

Specific upgrades to the product, which competes against NAC technologies made by Cisco Systems and others, is an entirely new user interface featuring a centralized policy-management console, along with new capabilities for creating customized security tests and the option for customers to manage security-related servers in clusters to help ease administration of the devices.

Using the system, if one server is disabled then others in its group can be set to automatically handle security and load balancing duties, according to StillSecure, which is based in Superior, Colo.

While Cisco and Microsoft recently announced that they have achieved interoperability between their NAC-oriented technologies, and predicted a related uptake in adoption of the security technique, executives at StillSecure said that customers are currently looking for best-of-breed products rather than focusing all their investment on products from the larger vendors.

"Its great because those guys are getting everyone pumped up about NAC in general, but Microsoft wont have its products available until 2007, and weve heard from customers that they want more than the NAC appliances that Cisco sells—they want whatever does the job best," said Alan Shimel, chief strategy officer at StillSecure.

"Eventually those Cisco NAC appliances will essentially become policy servers, and we will be able to pull a lot of information from those devices to give customers the network intelligence they really need."

Another security product launched during Interop was the WebBlazer Web Threat Management System introduced by partners Websense, which specializes in Internet security and Web filtering software, and Crossbeam Systems, based in Boxborough, Mass., which makes UTM (unified threat management) applications.

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The joint product promises comprehensive defense against a variety of Web-based attacks, while also offering to help accelerate online applications and Web site caching abilities.

The companies said that WebBlazer combines San Diego-based Websenses Content Gateway Web proxy and cache technology with Crossbeams UTM platform to provide a new layer of Web content control and visibility, along with improving site responsiveness and reducing the amount of work handled by network security gateways.

For its part, communications and security software maker VeriSign, Mountain View, Calif., detailed a new managed service that promises to help companies collect, analyze and store information gathered in their security alert databases.

Dubbed the VeriSign Log Management Service, the offering pledges to allow companies to improve their ability to monitor and draw conclusions from the security data being collected by their network devices.

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