Intrusion Detection Tuned to Customer Needs

Security companies will offer their latest and greatest products to safeguard users at the NetWorld+ Interop 2000 show next week. They will be spreading around an assortment of methods created to prevent Web hacks and network breaches as efficiently as possible.

With a rash of recent high-profile break-ins still fresh in their minds, many conference attendees will focus on finding intrusion detection methods tailored to meet their specific needs, said Eric Hemmendinger, senior analyst of information security at Boston-based Aberdeen Group Inc.

"It's not so much of what's bigger and better as much as what's better able to meet [user] needs," Hemmendinger said.

Users currently desire simpler ways of deploying security software in a complex environment, security better equipped to meet sophisticated exploits and attacks, and better handling of higher levels of traffic, Hemmendinger added.

During N+I, Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Top Layer Networks will announce a partnership aimed to protect speedy networks -- covering gigabit networks at up to 800MBps -- with intrusion detection software, said Mark Wood, director of product management at Atlanta-based ISS.

Wood said ISS' Real Secure intrusion detection and Westboro, Mass.-based Top Layer's AppSwitch will be configured to work in conjunction with each other.

Through the shared technology, AppSwitch will use load balancing to divide a network traffic stream and send the information back to a mutual management system to be protected by Real Secure.

Hemmendinger said smaller security companies have paid attention to what many of their larger brethren have already offered, and are looking for ways to improve on that technology. One part of that is gearing new products toward the small and midsize market.

Check Point Software Technologies, based in Redwood City, Calif., will launch a suite of security appliances this week to work with its recently announced VPN-1/Firewall SmallOffice software.

The products, built in conjunction with Richardson, Texas-based Intrusion.com and Santa Clara, Calif.-based Ramp Networks, gives SmallOffice users the same access control, management, logging, and network address translation features of the company's flagship security software, said Jim Lima, partner marketing manager at Check Point.

Lima said the company will also release a beefed-up version of its FloodGate-1 QoS (quality of service) product this week.

A couple of fledgling security companies catering to the mid-market as well, such as SecureWorks, will use the N+I stage as a launching pad for its business.

SecureWorks, based in Atlanta, will use the popular services model to shield customers from Internet attacks, including Web site vandalism, port scanning, viruses, and information theft and destruction.

Designed to protect companies with 250 or fewer network users per location, the SecureWorks service includes an iSensor security appliance to monitor all inbound and outbound traffic, with immediate response time provided from the company's Internet Monitoring Security Center, company officials said.

Woodland, Calif.-based Captus Networks will launch its first security product, CaptIO, in Atlanta this week. The 12-port CaptIO combines the functionality of a router, firewall, intrusion detection, and load balancer in a single rack unit device.