Choosing a Network Access Control (NAC) Solution that is Right for Your Network
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(Source: ForeScout) In this whitepaper you'll learn how to determine your organization's priorities and objectives for a NAC solution, the major differences between NAC solutions on the market (inline vs. out of band, client vs. clientless), how to conduct an onsite evaluation to determine the best solution for your enterprise, and the implementation challenges faced by enterprises.
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By Lesser, Amichai Liebmann, Lenny  How do you compare solutions for your network? Here's one metric.
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Letter: Setting the record straight on network location awareness and Vista Group Policy.
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TechWeb - New Secure Connector feature gives remote users secure network-level access, including access to business applications, data, and network services.
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As it develops the next generation of network security infrastructure, Cisco Systems Inc. is planning to cease development on its network admission control (NAC) client, the Cisco Trust Agent (CTA), and submit the source code for the software client to the open source community, Bob Gleichauf, CTO of Cisco's Security Technology Group, told InfoWorld.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft and Cisco Systems played the role of proud parents on Sept. 6. But with so many questions about when NAC-NAP, as itâs been called, will be available, and how it will work with non-Windows clients and non-Cisco infrastructure, itâs been hard to figure out what the companies created. Now other companies with a dog in the NAC fight are stepping up with their own plans. Last week, it was Juniper Networks and Symantec, announcing a strategic partnership to build integrated, standards-based access control and end-point compliance solutions. The companies will integrate their end-point compliance and access control solutions, such as Juniperâs Unified Access Control and Symantecâs Sygate Enterprise Protection, to create standards-based solutions. âNAC is still immature, but itâs growing fast. Thereâs real value in collaborating in that area to drive adoption in the customer accounts we share,â said Jeremy Burton, group president of enterprise security and data management at Symantec. As opposed to Cisco and Microsoft, Juniper and Symantec will make their integration comply with the Trusted Network Connect (TNC) architecture. âWe want to make sure that what we bring to market allows customers to leverage their existing relationships,â said Hitesh Shech, vice president of security products at Juniper. The thorniest questions are about security policy definition and enforcement, which is what Symantec and Juniper focus on, Shech said. Steve Hannah, a Juniper engineer and co-chair of the TNC subgroup within the Trusted Computing Group, said architectures such as UAC, NAP, NAC, and TNC must converge. Even Microsoft is humming along to that tune. Mark Ashida, general manager of enterprise networking servers at Microsoft, said that his company has already proved NAP interoperability with other 802.1x-compliant network infrastructure providers. Microsoft will demonstrate NAC policy enforcement with gear from Enteresys, Extreme, Foundry, and Hewlett-Packard at Interop in New York this week, Ashida said. That all makes Cisco more Microsoftâs âMr. Right Now,â than âMr. Right.â
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By Vaisman, Fima  Fiber cabling is best for IP security networks, but connectivity may not always be possible. Digital video surveillance is becoming a distributed IP network application.
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Single Packet Authorization fills the gaps in port knocking.
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(InfoWorld) - As it develops the next generation of network security infrastructure, Cisco Systems Inc. is planning to cease development on its network admission control (NAC) client, the Cisco Trust Agent (CTA), and submit the source code for the software client to the open source community, Bob Gleichauf, CTO of Cisco's Security Technology Group, told InfoWorld. Cisco has a goal of making the CTA open source within "a couple months," allowing the company to free up development resources for other areas of NAC, Gleichauf said. Cisco's decisionis Â more evidence that Cisco will cede control of the desktop to Microsoft Vista, following a deal in September to use the Microsoft's NAP (Network Access Protection Agent) as the client for both Cisco NAC and NAP. "CTA will be something that's open source. That's just logically where it should end up," Gleichauf told InfoWorld. "We don't want to be in the CTA business, so we're going to just open it up." In September, Cisco and Microsoft unveiled the fruits of a long, cross company effort to integrate their network access control architectures. The plan devised by the two companies called for computers running Windows Vista or Windows Server to include the NAP Agent component as part of the core operating system, and to use that agent for both NAP and NAC. The NAP added support Extensible Authentication Protocol over UDP and EAP-FAST support, developed by Cisco and distributed over Windows Update in addition to native EAP methods and an 802.1X supplicant to enable it to work for both NAC and NAP. Computers running Windows XP with Service Pack 2, as well as non Windows systems, would need to run the Cisco Trust Agent for NAC and run the NAP Agent for NAP. Cisco also promised to continue developing CTA for non-Windows Vista and non-Windows Server âLonghornâ platforms. Since then, however, Microsoft and Cisco have extended both 802.1x and EAP support to Windows XP, reducing the need for the CTA, said Mark Ashida, General Manager of Enterprise Networking Servers at Microsoft. Open sourcing the CTA agent is just part of a much larger effort at Cisco to push beyond mere network access control to a much broader security architecture that addresses problems such as data leaks and policy enforcement -- architecture in which Cisco's Security Agent (CSA) will play a much bigger role, Gleichauf said. "Data leakage is about things crossing boundaries from areas you control to areas where you have less control: e-mail attachments going over IM, or data going from someone in [human resources] to someone in manufacturing who shouldn't see it," he said. "For us, it's all about modeling based on how data moves around. We recognize that data has its own identity, and we want to use the controls we've built up around where users can go -- role based access -- to figure out where data can and can't go," he said. Components like the technology Cisco recently acquired with IronPort will provide some of the intelligence to stop messaging and Web based leaks, and Cisco will use intelligence in its routers and switches to control data flows and in the CSA agent to enforce data-level policies on the desktop, Gleichauf said.Â  "CSA is the next area where you're going to see us make go to market announcements that offer real value in the data leak space," he said. "Cisco's getting out of the desktop plumbing business and focusing on areas on the desktop where they can add value to what they're doing on the network," said Jon Oltsik, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. But Gleichauf's comment may also be an indication that Cisco trying to change the conversation around its NAC architecture, which has been a tough sell with enterprises largely because of the cost of upgrading Cisco and non-Cisco networking infrastructure in order to take advantage of the access control features. While the company has found plenty of buyers for its NAC appliance, formerly known as "Clean Access," it has had far few takers for the full fledged NAC solution. In the meantime, the company has found competition from a wide range of niche NAC vendors, security mainstays like Symantec as well as Microsoft, Juniper and the Trusted Computing Group's standards based Trusted Network Connect architecture. Gleichauf acknowledged that his company hadn't executed well in selling NAC to partners, but said the solution was for Cisco to close the loop even tighter on which firms it will tap to be a part of its solution. "With NAC we got caught in the vendor program race with TNC and Microsoft, where you want to get as many vendors as possible. But there are only a minority of vendors who are value added. The majority of them are just looking for stickers to put on their booth," he said.  Going forward with its data leakage solution, Cisco will rely on a small number of main vendors that offer it more value with license arrangements, rather than rely on open standards, Gleichauf said. That vision concerned Steve Hannah of the Trusted Computing Group, which promotes open standards for network access control that allow third party software to speak a common language when making access control decisions. Releasing the NAC client as an open source application was a fine gesture, but it has little value to the community at large until Cisco agreed to submit its NAC protocols as open standards, he said. "Ultimately, Cisco retains control, and you end up with Cisco as the center of the universe. So customers are stuck buying Cisco gear and looking for things that plug into Cisco gear, but they don't really have a choice of different vendors," said Hannah, who is a distinguished engineer at Cisco competitor Juniper Networks. TCG is happy to talk with Cisco about moving NAC protocols to open standards, perhaps blending NAC technologies from Cisco and TCG to give software vendors and enterprises the most choice, he said. In the end, submitting CTA as an open source application may just be a politically correct way of throwing in the towel on an application that had become irrelevant, said Oltsik. "It's a feel-good move," Oltsik said, but one without much force as long as the NAC protocols used by CTA remain firmly in Cisco's grasp.
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This paper discusses the use of NetFlow, a traffic profile monitoring technology available on many routers, for use in the early detection of worms, spammers, and other abnormal network activity in large enterprise networks and service providers. Part 2 of 2.
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Intel's move to provide new integration with NAC (network access control) tools in its latest vPro desktop processors could provide interesting opportunities for use with the device authentication systems while further strengthening the technology standards it supports, according to industry watchers.
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In this article we will look at a means to bypass the access control restrictions of a company's router or firewall.  This information is intended to provide help for those who are legitimately testing the security of a network (whether they are in-house expertise or outside consultants).
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(Source: Computerworld)  When it comes to storage systems, small and medium-sized businesses have had their share of challenges. Even when some storage vendors have tried to address the unique needs of the SMBs, it has been with underpowered versions of their enterprise-class products. The advent of unified network storage, exemplified by the DellTM PowerVaultTM NX1950, has dramatically altered the SMB landscape by combining iSCSI and NAS capabilities in a single, highly functional package that delivers simplified management and enhanced scalability at a cost-efficient price point.
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Is Network Appliance the company to beat?
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We have a few domains hosted on Network Solutions.  For one reason or another we were in a hurry and just used NetSol as our registrar.  BIG mistake!  They are one *pathetic* organization!  They are a DNS company.  That's what they DO!  Their DNS admin only allows 10 IPs. Of course they don't tell you this when you signup.  You only find out that the UI doesn't allow for additional IPs until try to add them.  To add insult to injury when you try to move AWAY from NetSol by changing your primary and secondary they drop your IP configuration immediately.  You're just out of luck if there are clients which have cached your primary and secondary DNS servers.  Now of course the solution would be  ...
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Company backs 128-bit encryption, support for home LANs
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(InfoWorld) - Narus Inc. is moving to help service providers scale up their network security, porting its NarusInsight Security Suite (NSS) to blade servers for the first time. NarusInsight is designed to detect IP (Internet Protocol) attacks on carrier networks, such as DDOS (distributed denial of service) and worm attacks, and alert network administrators as well as third-party tools that can halt those attacks. As the size of IP networks and the level of traffic on them grows, Narus aims to help carriers keep tabs on the situation. The Mountain View, California, company will unveil its latest software, NarusInsight Secure Suite 6, on Tuesday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. With the latest version, it has ported both elements of the system -- data collection and logic servers -- to IBM Corp.'s BladeCenter platform. Carriers can fill a rack with 13 collection blades, each monitoring a network connection as large as 10G bps (bits per second), with one logic blade handling the collected data, said Steve Bannerman, vice president of marketing and product management at Narus. The carriers can also link multiple chassis together and the logic blades will work together as a unit, he said. Previously, the NarusInsight collection servers were available only on Dell Inc. 1U rack-mounted servers. (The logic server can run on any Red Hat Inc. Linux hardware platform.) Blades tend to take up less space and consume less energy than rack-mounted servers, which can be critical issues in crowded service provider facilities. Narus also put a new user interface in NSS 6 to help network managers more quickly interpret incoming data about the network. For example, it will be easier to distinguish the traffic spikes caused by DDOS attacks from those that happen because users are sharing a new music video, Bannerman said. The new version also has built-in software for interoperability with mitigation tools such as Cisco Systems Inc.'s Cisco Guard. Previously, making the third-party tools work with Narus' monitoring system was a separate task, he said. AT&T Inc., Korea Telecom and Japan's KDDI Corp. are among Narus' customers. The company began selling NarusInsight about five years ago, Bannerman said. As carriers move from basic IP transport to providing their own services such as VOIP (voice over IP) and IPTV, they increasingly are the victims of attacks, he said. Meanwhile, enterprises are relying on carriers to keep their networks free of threats and the service providers are seeking added business by offering special security services, Bannerman added. NarusInsight deployments may cost anywhere from US$1 million to $15 million depending on the size of the network and other factors, Bannerman said.