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 | November 2002StatePointPlus
Westinghouse Electric When you think "security startup," you usually picture a couple of guys in a basement with a swinging light bulb, feverishly working on a bright idea and trolling through their Rolodexes for potential angel investors. But an increasing number of security startups got their legs as offshoots from large global corporations not normally associated with commercial IT security. Examples include defense contractor Raytheon, which recently established network forensics software manufacturer SilentRunner as a subsidiary; and two physical security companies, Kroll Inc. and Brinks Inc., which dabble in IT security services. The latest "startup" to make this leap is Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear energy products and services company that has released a security software suite called StatePointPlus. The suite, developed by Westinghouse's Core Technologies division, is a systems integrity manager that helps enterprises monitor and maintain configurations on distributed servers and client computers. From a central console, security admins can control the attributes of designated software and hardware objects and enforce system-specific configuration baselines for Windows NT/2000/XP and Unix (HP-UX and Solaris) environments. Central to the StatePointPlus suite is the Strategy Builder, a module that takes snapshots of system properties such as directory locations, registry settings and file sizes and compares them to one of several dozen preconfigured templates, searching for inconsistencies and changes. The software can be configured to scan for "delta" changes to common applications (e.g., MS Office) up to twice an hour. It can also perform per-minute scans for alterations to common services (such as registry settings) and hardware (such as the presence of a new NIC). Regardless of whether a setting was changed by accident or by exploit, StatePointPlus will report it to its Strategy Console.  The Strategy Builder also allows admins to build custom configuration templates for systems not supported out of the box. The third program in the suite, the Trend Analyzer, consolidates anomalies across systems. Using a multiview browser-based GUI, the app provides an overall report on the health of the network. Beyond its ability to catalog and report on configuration changes, StatePointPlus helps admins build and deploy configuration baselines for newly deployed servers and desktops, ensuring consistency in software installation and settings across server farms and client machines. StatePointPlus has a lot of upsides, but price and ease of use aren't among them. The software itself costs roughly $30,000, and some admins may require a lot of training to operate the suite and build custom configuration templates. Westinghouse offers a training course for an additional fee, as well as integration and consulting services for those needing a little more direction. However, given its comprehensive view and granular configuration management
of all types of software on the network, StatePointPlus may be worth the price
of admission, particularly for large enterprises. November 2002 Table of Contents Copyright 2002 TechTarget | |
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