Fed contractors try to provide IT security relief

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Sep 3, 2003 by Bobby White

Two federal information technology security contractors will come together tomorrow as sponsors of a seminar to address some of the mishaps firms encounter when trying to secure their networks.

Florida-based Cyberguard and Rockville-based Spirent Communications' discussion will occur during a time when the region's system administrators are recovering from a number of cyber attacks. In addition to the standard dirty e-mail, administrators have had to deal with two very troublesome computer worms. The LovSan and the SoBigF worms have wreaked havoc on local databases.

The LovSan worm shut down offices statewide of the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration. And the Maryland Rail Commuter service was dealing with its own problems when the SoBigF worm crept into its database. The commuter service had to shut down service for some of its busiest lines.

We are a higher security product than, say, what Cisco Systems puts out, said Matthew Mosher, vice president of the federal division for Cyberguard. While they put out a firewall product, its one in 24 different product lines. We focus exclusively on security.

Mosher said while the discussion is open to the public, most of the jargon used will be for the savvy system administrator - individuals whose job it is to keep the network running but who may need tips on how to keep out intruders. The free discussion will be held at the Metro Education Center in Linthicum Heights and will last from 8 a.m. to noon.

Cyberguard has been around since 1996 when it was spun off from the Florida-based communications equipment company Harris Corp. Spirent is a spinoff of England-based Spirent plc. Each firm's areas of expertise - Cyberguard's is general security and Spirent's is new product line for network enhancements - prompted the two to come together. The glut of federal and private IT professionals in the area near Washington pushed the firm to have its seminar in the region.

Mosher said most of the network security market is focused on firewalls, a filtering system that dictates what type of information and programs enter a network. The majority of firewalls concentrate on where the information came from and what service is it supposed to perform.

Mosher said, however, that the actual programs filtering through the firewalls are overlooked. The common complaint was that by examining the data itself, the process slows down the network. But those types of complaints were relegated to the 1990's, as technology has advanced since then, allowing for faster examinations.

It is a common misconception among not just the general public but also IT professionals that all you need is a firewall and anti- virus, said Mosher. Hackers are becoming more adept just as security professionals are. It is an ongoing battle. It's a very fluid environment. Its all about mitigating risks as much as you can.