NAC feeling the effects of the economy

01/08/09

The realities of the economy are starting to hit NAC, according to market analysis firm Infonetics.

Software agents as management tools for NAC

01/06/09

The argument goes you can never control network access for a desktop with a software agent because agents can be hacked, and there is no way to know for certain whether one has been compromised.

NetClarity claims its NACs are eco-friendly

12/18/08

NetClarity is making the pitch that it is the greenest of the NAC vendors, and maybe it is. It has three points to this claim: the tiny version of its NAC appliance, EasyNAC Micro doesn't use as much electricity as most other NAC boxes; the company buys energy credits with renewable energy groups to offset the power the devices use; and the company’s Endpoint Defender NAC agent includes a tool that enables shutting down unnecessary and power-consuming desktop functions.

NAC won't get its own year

12/16/08

This time of year, people make predictions about what the coming year will bring, and in technology circles that comes down to things like, "Next year will be the year of [name the technology]."

Enforcing regulatory compliance standards with NAC

12/11/08

NAC is often used as one tool for enforcing regulatory compliance standards and then proving that the standards were met.

Autonomic Networks ARMS your network

12/09/08

Recently a reader e-mailed to say that the Web site for former NAC vendor Vernier Networks was up and running again.

Check Point adds EAP support for better NAC enforcement

12/04/08

Check Point is adding extensible authentication protocol (EAP) support into its UTM-1 appliances, giving them the ability to enforce NAC policies for devices accessing wireless networks.

Impulse Point ties its NAC appliance with Blue Coat security gateways

12/02/08

NAC vendor Impulse Point is teaming up with WAN-optimization vendor Blue Coat to ensure that their gear works well together. Blue Coat makes ProxySG security gateways that perform multiple security functions but can also compress traffic and optimize it between devices or between an appliance and a workstation running a ProxySG client. Impluse Point makes Safe-Connect, a NAC appliance that discovers new devices on networks and pushes a Safe-Connect agent and a policy key. The key dictates what configuration parameters the device must meet and the agent enforces the policy on the device itself at Layer 2.

Fayetteville State University troubleshoots with NAC

11/25/08

Since it has implemented ConSentry NAC gear, Fayetteville State University in North Carolina finds that it gives the school better visibility into network traffic that results in using the gear as a troubleshooting tool.

Hybrid NAC is the order of the day

11/20/08

Hybrid deployments of NAC seem to be the order of the day for businesses that have more than one use for the technology.

Napera expands its NAC capabilities

11/18/08

Napera, the company that bases its NAC products on Microsoft software, is expanding the capabilities of its box.

The expanding definition of NAC

11/13/08

The Forrester report referenced in the last newsletter says that the expanding definition of NAC will result in more features more widely adopted by NAC vendors next year.

Hybrid NAC solutions

11/11/08

Forrester is out with another NAC report, this one urging customers not to lock in on a single architecture because they are likely to want a hybrid over time.

Getting more than you bargained for with NAC

11/06/08

NAC is supposed to do a lot of things, and once it's installed customers are finding that often NAC does even more than they bargained for.

Trusted Computing Group's resource page for NAC developers

11/04/08

Trusted Computing Group, which developed a body of NAC standards that are the framework for the NAC standards being weighed by the IETF, has centralized resources for developers of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), hardware that can make certain types of NAC more secure.

McAfee's IPS enforcement is home grown

10/30/08

Recently McAfee announced it was adding hardware enforcement to its NAC offerings by adding NAC software to its IPS appliance.

Enterasys now offers its own assessment software

10/28/08

Enterasys is adding its own brand of endpoint vulnerability assessment to the company's NAC package.

Taking a cautious approach to NAC

10/23/08

Not everybody wants to jump into NAC all at once, and Bradford Networks has a set of options for those who want to take a cautious approach.

McAfee adds hardware enforcement to its NAC

10/21/08

McAfee is adding hardware enforcement to its NAC offerings by adding NAC software to its IPS appliance.

NAC notices, not just for NAC policy

10/16/08

NAC is often used for something other than its original intent and here is another such case.

The tricky part of NAC deployment

10/14/08

NAC keeps machines that don't meet security policies off networks, but what those policies ought to be can be one of the trickiest parts in a NAC deployment.

The difficulties VoIP presents to NAC

10/09/08

VoIP presents its own set of NAC problems that can be overcome, but need to be up front in the minds of people making NAC decisions.

Using NAC to backstop and supplement other apps

10/07/08

Recently a user of ForeScout NAC gear said he's had the equipment in place for more than a year and doesn't have it enforcing NAC policies yet, but still finds the device worthwhile.

Novell gets into NAC

10/02/08

Recently Novell decided to get into NAC with an OEM offer from StillSecure.

Interim NAC strategy

09/30/08

NAC would prove useful enough to one potential user of the technology that he is considering buying an interim NAC product for use over the next three years with the long-term intention of shifting to Microsoft's NAC flavor, network access protection.

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Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.