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Configuresoft, provider of policy compliance and configuration management technology, announced the availability of the Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) Spyware Toolkit. The ECM Spyware Toolkit enforces configuration security settings that prevent more than 1,400 predefined bad or suspect ActiveX controls and cookies from running on managed systems.
"Eighty to 90 percent of computers have some form of spyware on them," said Rich Mogull, research director for analyst firm Gartner Inc.* Spyware is typically categorized as any inadvertently downloaded software that secretly relays private information from a user's PC to a third party without proper authorization. These spyware programs present two distinct problems for the end user and the IT department: data privacy and productivity loss.
Data privacy is clearly a top issue for consumers and organizations alike. For example, spyware can track user activity and capture data such as passwords, credit card numbers and social security numbers, putting personal and corporate data at risk. Adding even more urgency, regulatory compliance acts, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, mandate that corporations address the privacy implications associated with spyware.
Beyond privacy issues, productivity can be severely compromised when frequent ads pop up; when memory, CPU cycles, network bandwidth and storage space are consumed; when Web pages load more slowly, and more. In fact, many IT organizations find that end users calling the Helpdesk to complain about system performance problems are actually dealing with spyware.
In a July report titled, "Preventing and Removing Spyware," Gartner analysts predicted that unified client software that included spyware detection, in addition to personal firewall, anti-virus and behavior-based protection, would appear by the end of 2005. However, spyware is clearly impacting business today, and organizations need solutions today. Configuresoft's ECM Spyware Toolkit provides what organizations are demanding and deserve-continuous configuration and change control management for servers, desktops and mobile devices.
Configuresoft's ECM Spyware Toolkit provides not only the depth and visibility required to understand the extent of the problem across an enterprise, but also the ability to remediate existing issues and block future attacks. This Toolkit is based on a three-step process: audit, remediate, prevent.
* Audit. ECM provides an in-depth, enterprise-wide view of every workstation and server on the network. ECM couples this comprehensive data with the intelligence of the Toolkit to diagnose and report on an organization's exposure to spyware risks and to help design an effective anti-spyware security policy. The Toolkit's 1,400+ predefined rules jump start this analysis.
* Remediate. Once it has identified the spyware exposure, the ECM Spyware Toolkit will ensure that the ActiveX and cookie block list configurations are compliant across all enterprise systems. The Toolkit quickly identifies and remediates noncompliant software, manages enterprise- wide system settings and remediates spyware presence through administrative updates, security update deployments and flexible remote commands. Compliance Reports enable an organization to easily track conformity and compliance settings.
* Prevent. Once an organization understands the spyware problem and remediates the existing issues, it can prevent future issues by deploying the spyware blocking lists supplied with the Toolkit. The Toolkit can be used to install "black lists" (block known bad ActiveX controls and cookies) on machines or to create a new "white list" (only run known good ActiveX controls) for Windows XP Service Pack 2 machines. Windows XP SP2 introduced this new, much needed capability, and ECM delivers the information to create this white list. The Toolkit will constantly monitor and enforce compliance with the adopted policy. It also provides system alerts and email notification when machines fail compliance checks.
"Spyware continues to evolve as more sophisticated methods appear to exploit systems and users. Companies must therefore keep pace with this growing threat to privacy and productivity," said Randy Streu, vice president of Product Management at Configuresoft. "Configuresoft's ECM Spyware Toolkit offers unparalleled visibility into the enterprise to determine how widespread a spyware problem is and then proactively audits, remediates and manages a network to prevent further invasions from known violators."
About Enterprise Configuration Manager and its Suite of Products
Configuresoft's suite of products offers solutions for configuration management, configuration compliance, patch management, extended configuration and compliance support for mobile laptops, and extended configuration and compliance support for SMS and SUS clients. Configuresoft's flagship product, ECM, automates the management of configuration settings for Windows-based servers and clients, and enforces security and IT standards. ECM enables companies and government agencies to prevent security vulnerabilities, minimize downtime, reduce help desk calls and enhance system performance. Going beyond patch management, ECM enforces security policies without human intervention by automatically resetting configurations to their predefined standard when they are inadvertently changed. These capabilities help organizations retain their systems' proper configuration, while ensuring IT security compliance with regulatory requirements such as FISMA, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and GLBA.
17.11.2004, Configuresoft
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