Protect Users From Themselves

The sting of last year's Nimda and Code Red attacks taught a harsh lesson: Weak security on remote-access notebooks and VPN-connected desktops poses a significant risk to business networks. But enforcing security policies on remote and mobile systems is a daunting challenge.

Software by security vendor Sygate Technologies Inc., which secured $17.5 million in venture capital last week to bring its funding to date to $29 million, tackles that problem by enforcing security policies on remote user devices. The software installs agents on the devices that learn user and application behaviors and define and enforce company security policies.

That way, if a user disables personal firewall software, Sygate's agent would detect that change and automatically re-activate the firewall before allow-ing the device to connect to the company's network.