Four thousand six hundred seventy-five: That’s the number of computer-related vulnerabilities the National Institute of Standards and Technology tracks and reports in its National Vulnerability Database. More than 1,800 of those are deemed to be of high severity.
Winning company: Symantec
Winning product: DeepSight Alert Services
Four thousand six hundred seventy-five: That’s the number of computer-related vulnerabilities the National Institute of Standards and Technology tracked last year in its National Vulnerability Database. More than 1,800 of those are deemed to be of high severity.
Such is the reason we picked Symantec’s DeepSight Alert Services as the Best of the Tests winner in this category. DeepSight performed tops in our test of vulnerability alerting services, which help enterprise security managers sort out which vulnerabilities will directly affect their networks and offer up remediation suggestions.
Network World Lab Alliance member Mandy Andress found these services generally useful because they help filter the myriad alerts. With these services in place, IT security personnel can focus on crafting remediation plans rather than on combing through mailing lists and vendor sites for new alerts.
Symantec’s DeepSight Alert Services (we tested Version 6.0), which the company picked up in its 2004 acquisition of SecurityFocus, came out as our Clear Choice winner with a 4.88 out of 5 rating. Specifically, it provided the most delivery options, offered very detailed reports, supported a plethora of alert category configuration options and registered very quick response times in that test, Andress found.
Security Management finalists
Symantec released DeepSight Alert Services 7.0 in January. This upgrade delivers new vulnerability, malicious code, spyware and adware alerts.
Symantec also recently announced plans to acquire IMLogic, maker of enterprise software for instant messaging. Following the acquisition, which is scheduled to close later this quarter, Symantec will immediately integrate IMLogic’s threat detection and remediation for IM into its early warning and response system. The software will augment the capabilities of Symantec Security Response, the company’s security research center.
FUTURE TESTS: This year we’ll be looking at new classes of products, such as those that help define system security policy and identify systems out of compliance, and help security managers to take remediation actions. We’ll test data leakage management products for the first time. And we’ll also take several more passes at vulnerability assessment tools in a variety of smaller tests based on how the products attack the problem of pinpointing network holes.
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