Features

Boingo uses a similar network aggregation model seen on ISP networks from the likes of iPass and GRIC. But it goes further with its business model, collecting and distributing usage revenues amongst the various network operators whose Wi-Fi hotspots it uses.

Whilst RealVNC is freeware and a very basic remote access package with minimal security, TridiaVNC Pro shows what can be done with open source software.

Timbuktu Pro, which is available in both Mac and Windows, is clearly aimed at Mac users. The PC version, while functionally similar to the Mac edition, appears to be something of an afterthought, since functionality is limited.

RemotelyAnywhere is a relatively late arrival to the remote access software landscape. Despite this, the package is arguably the most complex currently available on the market, offering the IT professional full access to a remote machine's facilities, even allowing a full reboot on the fly.

Originally developed as a freeware project within AT&T, VNC - short for virtual network computing - now has several freeware variants.

Proxy is less of a remote access package and more of a remote support application, but going significantly beyond the feature set of other products.

GoToMyPC takes a radically different approach to remote access. Instead of requiring users to dial into the host PC, the host PC maintains a passive out bound only link with GoToMyPC's servers.

Now in version 11, pcAnywhere is one of the longest-running remote access applications for the PC. We can remember using an early DOS edition in the mid-to-late 1980s.

As an alternative to costly proprietary tools, we sourced a variety of open source software, with the goal of emulating as much of the feature-sets offered by closed source products, such as EnCase and ProDiscover.

Unlike the data acquisition tools here, WinTasks is intended to give administrators a view of the running state of a system, helping to identify and track malicious activity.

EnCase from Guid-ance Software has been at the vanguard of forensics software for some time - and with good reason.
Now in version 4.14, the solution is a powerful ­ collection of correlation and analysis tools, designed to make the forensic investigator's job as easy as possible.

Mail-Lock falls into a new category of email protection software, which the vendor calls email personal information containment, or EPIC for short. The software is claimed to allow users to carefully control what recipients of email can do with the messages and certain types of attachments. It does this using encryption technology to limit the functions within Outlook, as well as the length of time a message can be viewed by the recipient. The time control element is, as far as we can determine, the package's unique function within the POP-3/SMTP environment.
This version of Mail-Lock is designed to function as an add-in for Microsoft Outlook in all its desktop Windows variants, protecting the text of the email, as well as MS-Word, Excel and Powerpoint attachments. If an attachment from another application is attached and sent, Mail-Lock cannot control what happens to the attachment at the recipient's PC: it will simply open as normal. The company is developing versions for Outlook Express and Lotus Notes users, but no timescales for the updated releases have been made.

As any security administrator knows, the only thing as bad as not enough information is too much. Staying on top of the overwhelming flood of information from every device is a difficult job. Information comes in as events, alerts, notifications of changes or just status updates. Making sense of it all requires efficient correlation tools, like the Network Intelligence logging appliances.
Network Intelligence sent us the HA 2000, the smallest version of its enterprise-class product suite, fitting in between the EX series targeting SMEs, and the LS series for large environments. The system runs Windows 2000 Server in a 2U rack-mount chassis. The HA 2000 is licensed to handle a maximum of 2,000 events per second (EPS), from a maximum of 64 information sources. There are several larger versions available (chiefly a matter of licensing, although at 4,000 EPS the devices start shipping with more on-board disk and memory), up to 6,000 EPS, for monitoring up to 1,024 network devices. And they can be clustered, up to three units together for triple the throughput.

Preventon Secure Internet Desktop or PSID for short, is an amalgam of all of the company's products in a multi-function suite. The software is available in two versions - an ISP edition that relies upon the subscription service for ISPs in order to maintain, update and interact with the client software on the user's desktop, and a desktop version that functions on a standalone basis. The ISP version of the Personal Firewall PRO is already available to subscribers of Planet Internet in the Netherlands, at a subscription price of just over a pound a month (€1.95) and other ISPs are expected to sign up to the service in due course.

Computer Associates eTrust Antivirus is part of the eTrust security product family that has build its reputation on usability, detection, disinfection and the quality of support expected of any best-of-breed security solution. It provides its users with regular updates for ongoing protection, offering both virus antidotes and signature files to keep the user one step ahead. If you are looking for an anti-virus solution that protects both the server environment and the workstation, with more than adequate protection for a typical SME and the larger corporation alike, then eTrust Antivirus is well worth consideration. Installation of the eTrust Antivirus solution is flexible, it can either be achieved remotely or by local means, so depending on the size of your enterprise you can determine which offers the best option when you are ready to install it.

The Instant Virtual Extranet (IVE) Access 3000 from Neoteris is a hardware/software hybrid SSL VPN appliance that offers users access to network resources securely. These resources also encompass web-enabled applications and email software (Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange), as well as Unix file shares.

Many companies are looking to secure their networks from wardriving attacks and the current advice is to put a VPN behind a wireless access point. With this in mind, the following product should be ideal. The aim of the product is to secure access to network infrastructure from wireless clients using the wireless transport layer security (WTLS) protocol, which is a wireless version of SSL.

This product is built upon Sun's very secure Trusted Solaris 8 operating system, which has been used by the U.S. Department of Defense for over 25 years. It is a hardened version of the Solaris operating system platform for deployment of high-security desktops, database servers, firewalls, and communication gateways.

Now in version 3.6, the Tsunami VPN appliance sports a simpler management interface and new tools for managing access rules, as well as the ability to send password expiration warnings to remote users who authenticate against NT domains.

The U.are.U Pro for Active Directory from Digital Persona is, as its name suggests, a product to bring biometric identity verification to a Windows Active Directory environment (including Windows Server 2003). It may be fully integrated at server level or used on a standalone workstation.