Can your computers pass a basic NAC compliance test?

Clarifying issues surrounding this emerging security architecture

A Sophos survey finds that 39% of corporate computers scanned by the company flunked a basic NAC compliance test.

The online scan that was advertised to IT professionals generated 583 assessments worldwide between April 29 and June 7.

Visitors to the site would fill out a demographic survey and download a NAC scanning Java Script that checked out their machine. The scan looked for operating system patches; secure Internet Explorer browser configurations; and security patches for Microsoft Office, Media Player and Flash Player (Compare Patch and Vulnerability Management products).

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A Sophos survey finds that 39% of corporate computers scanned by the company flunked a basic NAC compliance test.

The online scan that was advertised to IT professionals generated 583 assessments worldwide between April 29 and June 7.

Visitors to the site would fill out a demographic survey and download a NAC scanning Java Script that checked out their machine. The scan looked for operating system patches; secure Internet Explorer browser configurations; and security patches for Microsoft Office, Media Player and Flash Player (Compare Patch and Vulnerability Management products).

It also checked whether the devices had antivirus software installed (Compare antivirus products), turned on and updated to the most recent release. And it looked for a personal firewall installed and turned on.

If any one of these parameters was not met, the device flunked.

Worldwide, the most common shortcoming was missing security patches, with 63% missing them. Firewalls came in second, with 47% of them installed but turned off. Just 5% of antivirus software was installed but turned off, and another 10% had the antivirus turned on but not up to date.

Sophos acknowledges that the machines tested were likely IT professionals, but says these results are similar to what Sophos gets when it runs scans on all the endpoints in customer networks as part of its QuickScan service.

This also falls in line with anecdotal accounts from businesses that install NAC without knowing ahead of time how compliant their machines are. Some have reported more than 60% of their machines flunking. That’s the reason it pays to install NAC gear in monitoring mode before turning it on so all those machines that would otherwise be rejected can be fixed before the NAC rules are enforced.

The Sophos test is ongoing and can be found here.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.

Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.