Symantec Provides Organizations the Power to Plan, Supervise and Monitor Network Security Policies With Comprehensive Vulnerability Management Solution

Business Wire, Nov 15, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2001

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today offered IT and security administrators the power to automate the planning, supervision, and monitoring of security policies from a single location with the introduction of Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) 5.5. With unparalleled scalability and performance, ESM 5.5 works in conjunction with other Symantec Enterprise Security solutions to provide organizations with comprehensive, multi-tier protection against today's blended Internet security threats.

"As new, more sophisticated threats combine viruses with vulnerability exploits, many companies are quickly discovering that developing and deploying network security policies are critical steps, but have been costly and time-consuming in the past," said Ronald Van Geijn, director of product management at Symantec Corporation. "Symantec's Enterprise Security Manager eliminates many of those obstacles by simplifying the entire security policy set-up and installation process, and enabling administrators to swiftly assess and address potential weaknesses in their network security infrastructures."

Through Symantec's LiveUpdate technology, ESM 5.5 users with a current maintenance agreement can now easily download the latest security updates from Symantec servers automatically and deploy them across the globe. The product also offers enhanced reporting capabilities and easier-to-use policy set up and management -- resulting in reduced costs and increased productivity for IT and security administrators.

A feature rich vulnerability management solution, ESM 5.5 allows IT administrators and IT security officers to effortlessly create, manage, and install customized security policies across local and international networks, while simultaneously scrutinizing those systems for potential security breaches. Monitored via its central console and easy-to-use, intuitive graphical user interface, ESM 5.5 performs more than 2,000 different security and vulnerability checks on the largest variety of operating system platforms, including Window NT/2000/XP, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Red Hat Linux and various other UNIX systems, Novell NetWare, OpenVMS, and IBM iSeries (AS/400).

New Product Features

ESM 5.5 includes the following new features:

-- LiveUpdate -- With LiveUpdate, customers with a current maintenance
agreement can easily download up-to-the-minute security updates directly from
Symantec servers, and automatically deploy them to multiple ESM 5.5 managers
and agents around the world -- all from a single console. Symantec uses a
series of security updates to provide ESM 5.5 customers with coverage for the
latest security threats and patch updates from operating system vendors.
Security Updates are released on a quarterly basis, or immediately when the
need arises. These updates further insulate organizations from potentially
damaging blended threats and other severe vulnerabilities that jeopardize
network and system integrity.

-- More Detailed, Customizable Reporting -- Security administrators can prepare
and distribute detailed pre-configured and customizable reports with the
integration of Crystal Reports. Users may also create their own queries and
reports based on specific network characteristics.

-- Policy Import/Export Utility -- Network security policies are expensive and
time-intensive to design. With ESM 5.5, security managers can easily build and
distribute policies to branch offices around the world to ensure the company's
parameters are consistent. Conversely, the product also allows
previously-developed security policies to be imported into the system, and then
deployed and installed.

-- Relational Database Support -- ESM 5.5 supports major relational databases,
including Oracle, SQL Server, and Microsoft Access. The product collects vital
security information and exports it to the selected database. The customer can
then apply custom queries to that database to create specific reports for a
target application, or the company as a whole.

ESM 5.5 Agents, Managers and Modules

ESM 5.5's host-based configuration utilizes an installed "agent" on each system to examine vulnerabilities and compliance to the security policy. A central component, the "manager," instructs the agents to retrieve and analyze security information. This information is stored on the manager system and delivered to a "console," where the security administrator can further review the security data gathered by the agents. The analysis generated is based on the organization's security policies that are easily modified with one or more ESM 5.5 modules. The modules are tailored components that evaluate a variety of operating systems. In addition, a set of Symantec's Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition policies are also available. Users with a current maintenance agreement can obtain the most current updates to these modules via LiveUpdate.

ESM customers can also purchase additional modules to protect mission critical e-business applications and databases from security vulnerabilities. Current modules include protection for Web servers and Oracle databases.