Counterpane Internet Security Inc. on Monday announced a new offering that completely revamps the companys menu of enterprise services. The Global Enterprise Protection Suite comprises three distinct services, including two totally new offerings, and is meant to complement Counterpanes managed security monitoring business.
The new device management, vulnerability scanning and active response services were developed in response to customer requests and were natural extensions of the work that Counterpane already did for customers, company officials said.
“We already had a lot of visibility into customer networks, and they asked us if there was more we could do,” said Doug Howard, vice president of strategy and product development at Couterpane, based in Cupertino, Calif.
The vulnerability scanning service surveys all of a customers devices for security vulnerabilities and exposures and cross-references the results with the current security monitoring data to identify potential attack vectors and other weaknesses.
The scan data is also used in the device management offering, which enables Counterpane analysts to make changes to customer security devices. Each customer creates an individual list of priorities for its IT assets, and Counterpane uses the list to help make the decision on which devices need attention first during an event.
All of these services come together to help create the active response offering. During security events, customers who would rather not turn over the entire management of their devices to an outside company can allow Counterpane to have external administrative rights to inbound and outbound traffic. This gives Counterpane the ability to make adjustments to traffic flow and other variables to help mitigate the effects of an attack.
This is accomplished through the use of an in-line appliance that sits between the customers WAN router and firewall.
“That way we can make changes to block attacks without managing the firewall,” Howard said.