Best Products: Security management finalists

In the vulnerability alerting services test, Cybertrust’s Alert Manager placed a close second to Symantec’s DeepSite Alert Services with an overall score of 4.5 out of 5. While Alert Manager fell a bit behind in alert delivery options, it stood strong in terms of the type of vulnerability information it provided and the format in which that data could be served up to an enterprise security manager. Cisco acquired Cybertrust in November 2005, and renamed the product Intellishield Alert Manager.

Back to the Security Management winner

In the vulnerability alerting services test, Cybertrust’s Alert Manager placed a close second to Symantec’s DeepSite Alert Services with an overall score of 4.5 out of 5. While Alert Manager fell a bit behind in alert delivery options, it stood strong in terms of the type of vulnerability information it provided and the format in which that data could be served up to an enterprise security manager. Cisco acquired Alert Manager in November 2005, and renamed the product Cisco Alert Manager.

Guidance Software’s EnCase Enterprise impressed Lab Alliance member Sam Stover for its enterprise incident-response and forensic capabilities, especially from a vendor traditionally focused on law enforcement. EnCase Enterprise’s ability to help a network investigator establish relationships between open ports, open files, network connections, hidden files or processes and malicious network activity is the product’s most useful functionality, Stover said.

NetIQ Group Policy Guardian and Group Policy Administrator earned its finalist spot as the top performer in our test of products that build on top of Microsoft’s Active Directory Group Policy administration to provide advanced assistance with access control, reporting, change management and security auditing functionality. NetIQ’s two-product package earned our top honors based on its breadth of features, with specific prowess in auditing and change management capabilities.

In a stand-alone test, Thor Technologies‘ Xellerate Identity Manager collected high grades from Lab Alliance member Mandy Andress for providing extremely flexible account provisioning mechanisms across a multitude of products and technologies, supporting even the most complex of business workflows. Oracle acquired Thor late last year, with plans to roll this product into its identity management suite.

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