IBM and Cisco have introduced a set of products and
services that will share security information to control access to
corporate networks.
The two companies have been working for the past six months to
integrate their products in a way that would allow security
enforcement technology within businesses to communicate with each
other.
Their goal was to offer IT directors a method of identifying
systems that were not compliant with established security policies.
According to Vincent Bieri, business development manager at Cisco,
when non-compliant systems or threats are detected, the Cisco and
IBM product will work together to prevent access to the network or
IT resources.
To exchange security information, IBM said it would be
participating in Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) programme.
The programme attempts to bolster security within a corporate
network by allowing users to check the security status of PCs and
servers automatically.
Based on users' pre-defined corporate IT security policies, Cisco
said network security products supporting NAC are able to work in a
co-ordinated fashion to prevent or allow access to critical network
and system resources.
In practice, Tivoli Policy Manager from IBM would query Cisco's
network admission control to determine whether a non-compliant
system was attempting to log onto the network. Mike Collins,
security manager at Tivoli, said, "A Cisco security agent would be
able to look at a client PC to check if it had the right level of
patches."
IBM will be bundling the Cisco Security Agent with IBM PC clients
and servers in a bid to combat so-called "day zero" network attack.
In such attacks, users are at risk from viruses or worms that are
propagating on the internet before anti-virus researchers have
developed a suitable patch. Such viruses have no defined signature
so users' anti-virus programs cannot offer any immediate
protection.
IBM has also embedded a security chip into its Thinkpad notebooks
and Thinkcentre desktops to improve the security of connecting to
wired and wireless networks based on Cisco virtual private network
technology. The chip is used to store encrypted authentication
information
The Tivoli Identity Manager agent for Cisco Secure Access Control
Server is due to start shipping in March.
Download the Cisco Security Agent for IBM PCs and servers
www.pc.ibm.com/europe/security/en/secdownload?uk