Continental Airlines is rolling out a cut-price data
security system to control user access and contain malicious
security breaches.
It is the first large company to adopt Secure Lan Controller, a
new product from ConSentry Networks.
The Secure Lan Controller appliance family, which fits in front
of existing network routers and switches, tells network
administrators exactly which users are affected by rogue data
traffic.
Once they know which network clients are responsible for
security breaches, companies can isolate threats on the network and
stop them spreading to other users.
The system costs from £21 a year for each user protected.
Speaking at this week’s NetEvents IT symposium in Italy, Andre
Gold, Continental Airlines director of information security, said,
“ConSentry is the only supplier that has demonstrated the ability
to inspect all traffic in real-time and associate that traffic with
individual users.
“This is a distinct security advantage because we now have
control not only over who is allowed on the network, but what
resources and applications users are authorised to access.”
Gold said that Continental relied on a number of Cisco routers
to run its network, and adopting a comparable network access system
using Cisco’s much vaunted “self-defending network” platform, using
new routers, would have cost the company around $4.5m (£2.6m).
A company-wide protection system using ConSentry’s boxes should
cost only around $450,000, said Gold.
John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, said of the ConSentry
system, “A viable option for implementing a form of network access
control is to have an in-line device that piggy-backs switches or
routers on your network.”