Enterasys Delivers Distributed Intrusion Prevention System

Enterasys Networks Inc., the Secure Networks Company, announced today a new Distributed Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to automatically sense and respond to threats in real-time across multi-vendor wired and wireless networks. Rather than restricting IPS visibility and control to a subset of network connections, IPS proactive protections are extended to every LAN edge access port and all WLAN 802.11 frequencies to detect threats, mitigate or stop any attack and, most importantly, automatically contain and/or remove the source of the threat from the network. The solution integrates with switches and intrusion detection/prevention appliances from multiple vendors to leverage existing infrastructure investments while automating responses to security incidents.

"Network security needs to be built-in everywhere, rather than bolted-on somewhere," said Mike Fabiaschi, Enterasys President and CEO. "Enterasys advanced security software delivers fully distributed protection from both internal and external threats without having to deploy appliances on every wire. Rather than just telling you that a threat exists -- we make it easy to immediately remove the threat from any multi-vendor network without impacting performance."

IT operations can avoid the performance bottleneck and scalability limitations of traditional in-line IPS appliances by deploying Enterasys Distributed IPS. Unlike traditional IPS solutions that cannot provide critical threat identification, location, containment, and removal capabilities; the Enterasys Distributed IPS solution removes the source of the attack's access to the network and reconfigures network devices from Cisco, Enterasys, Foundry, HP ProCurve, Juniper, Nortel, and other vendors to prevent future access. Depending on the capabilities of existing switches, automatic responses can range from throttling inappropriate traffic and/or blocking individual user/device access (for Enterasys policy-enabled switches), assigning packets to a quarantine VLAN (for all RFC 3580 compliant switches) or turning off the port (for any SNMP MIB II compliant switches).

"Self-securing networks are one step closer to reality with this cost-effective approach," said Charlotte Dunlap, Current Analysis Senior Analyst, Enterprise Security. "As network security evolves from access control to content control, enterprises need a way to dynamically protect the network infrastructure from accidental and malicious attacks -- without deploying expensive security appliances everywhere."

The Enterasys Distributed Intrusion Prevention System is the industry's first comprehensive IPS solution to cost-effectively address real-world operational requirements by:

--  Identifying a vulnerability, threat or security event
--  Mitigating an attack by dropping the attack packet(s)
--  Reporting the details of the attack
--  Locating the exact physical source of the attack
--  Containing the threat by removing the source from the network

Enterasys Distributed IPS can also play a key role in post-connect Network Access Control (NAC) for continuous threat analysis, network behavioural analysis and deep packet inspection to assist in data leakage protection. Deploying the Enterasys Distributed Intrusion Prevention System reduces the exposure of IT resources to internal and external threats due to targeted business disruptions, opportunistic predators, or accidental malware infections. When dealing with fast-propagating threats to the enterprise like malware, time is of the essence. It is imperative to react quickly and effectively in mitigating a threat to prevent critical business processes from being impacted, ensuring continuity of operations, and reducing overall risk to the business.

Pricing and Availability

The Enterasys Distributed Intrusion Prevention System solution is composed of Dragon® IDS/IPS and NetSight® Automated Security Manager software which can be deployed as appliances or embedded inside the Matrix N-Series flow switch. Available immediately from authorized Enterasys distributors and value-added resellers worldwide, pricing starts at $35,995.

About Enterasys

Enterasys is owned by a private investor group led by The Gores Group, LLC and Tennenbaum Capital Partners, LLC. Enterasys delivers Secure Networks that ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of IT services and the business users that rely on them -- without sacrificing performance. Thousands of enterprises, government agencies and educational institutions in more than 70 countries worldwide rely on our convergence, compliance and connectivity solutions to deliver business-oriented, policy-based visibility and control of individual user and application priority and security. The company's culture is centered on the principle, "There is nothing more important than our customers." Enterasys' standards-based, open-architecture approach to network security offers a long technology lifecycle and significant operational and business benefits, while reducing total cost of ownership. Information about Enterasys' award winning, policy-enabled switches, routers, wireless products, security software and services is available at www.enterasys.com .