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Risk detection specialist Securify unveiled the latest version of its network security appliance on May 30, promising more comprehensive behavior monitoring tools and new identity management features.
Known simply as the Securify Monitor, the newest iteration of the security appliance represents a marked improvement over earlier models based on its ability to provide more detailed network analysis reports to system administrators, according to company officials. Along with bolstered capabilities for detecting rogue internal behavior and outside attacks, the device adds expanded functions for mapping any inappropriate computer activity back to specific end users.
To that end, the company said the device utilizes deeper integration with Microsofts Active Directory to allow for more precise monitoring of individual behavior and gives companies the ability to detect potential security breaches before, or even as, they occur. The appliance includes a new set of preconfigured security parameters, or controls, that can be used to actively analyze end users network permissions and computing behavior, and alert IT administrators when any troubling situation appears.
Giving customers the ability to abandon the process of studying network security logs and more rapidly identify truly dangerous behavior is just what companies are looking for today, specifically as their networks become more widely distributed among geographies and end-user communities, said Steve Woo, vice president of marketing for Securify.
“Theres tremendous concern over the growing need to offer insider privileges to a broader audience, driven by outsourcing and close corporate partnering, and administrators are being asked to spend even more hours looking at server logs, which doesnt equate to great results,” said Woo. “The key is helping companies keep the closest eye on their most important business applications, not on desktop communications; its about seeing who is taking what data, and where the information is being accessed from.”
The device, which comes in three models with 100MB, 400MB and 1GB link capacities, also boasts enhanced content filtering and behavior controls that add the ability to monitor end-user activity within Web-based applications, by both protocol command and by tracking URLs. The appliance offers to watch such applications for issues including frequency of transactions they are used to complete, or the volumes of data they are used to access, to help identify improper activity.
Securifys appliances compete against similar hardware from Checkpoint Security and Mazu Networks.
One company already using the updated version of the Securify Monitor is wireless software maker Openwave of Redwood City, Calif. Executives at the firm said that the devices ability to provide real-time information about network activity and scour large amounts of data, regardless off its physical location, has been the products strong suits.
Steve Kirschbaum, senior manager of information security at Openwave, said that the companys place in the market for providing wireless Internet and applications access to enterprises demands that it remain tightly focused on security. The devices allow the company, which has been using Securify technologies for roughly one year, to provide carriers and other customers with detailed security reports that ultimately help it sell its own services, he said.
“This is a technology that is actually helping us differentiate from our competitors because we can offer customers an additional level of granularity around network operations that other technologies do not,” said Kirschbaum. “We need to incorporate a number of different tools to provide people with all the reports they want, and this device is particularly useful in that regard because it can process a massive amount of data while allowing us to tweak the system to get at the data we really need to show off.”