FISMA News

Virtualization Security Pioneer Catbird Launches Free Compliance Enforcer

(Dec 17, 2008)-- Catbird, the pioneer in comprehensive security and compliance for virtual and physical networks, announced the launch of the Catbird Compliance Enforcer, a free service that instantly validates and enforces the security and compliance of virtual data centers. Unlike passive auditing tools, the Catbird Compliance Enforcer’s automated VM quarantine technology brings a level of protection to VMware commensurate with industry regulations and critical to passing traditional audits.

The Compliance Enforcer conducts a rapid analysis of all virtual machines, virtual networks and the hypervisor management network itself, immediately quarantining questionable machines and traffic and generating reports on anomalous conditions in violation of established regulations. The Catbird Compliance Enforcer is based on Catbird’s patented V-Security™, a non-invasive and comprehensive Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for virtual and physical networks. V-Security’s cross-platform coverage includes Rogue VM Quarantine; Network Access Control (NAC); Sprawl Management and Control; Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Intrusion Detection (IDS); Policy Compliance and Enforcement; Vulnerability Monitoring; Auditing Compliance and Virtual Network Segmentation.

“Tough economic times make virtualization’s huge cost reductions very compelling,” noted Edmundo Costa, Catbird COO. “But companies need to adapt people, process and technology to the new virtualization security and compliance challenges, or risk leaving their mission-critical servers out of deployment plans. With the cost of a breach audit in the seven figures, virtualization ROI will only be realized if there is iron-clad security and compliance for the virtual data center. Catbird’s new free service is just the bailout the industry ordered.”

Catbird Compliance Enforcer can be configured to validate and enforce compensating controls for standards such as HIPAA, FISMA, GLBA, SOX and others. Equipped with a set of default policy templates, customers can use the service “as is”, or customize the service for the specific rules and internal guidelines set by their own organizations. Once turned on, the non-invasive Compliance Enforcer runs out of band, eliminating any performance or availability impact on the VMware installation.

Additional benefits of the new Catbird Compliance Enforcer include:

* Full virtual host protection via immediate quarantine of misconfigured or compromised virtual machines.
* Realization of virtualization ROI.
* Cost savings due to avoidance of breach audits.
* Identification and quarantine of potential vulnerabilities or malicious traffic on the virtual network.
* Assurance that ESX configurations are compliant with current standards and hardening guidelines.
* Confidence in overall health of security and compliance posture of VMware installation.
* Best-practice enforcement of virtualization configuration and security standards.
* Compliance-checking with all major standards.

Compliance Enforcer includes a free license to run up to 5 Catbird V-Agents™, using Catbird’s hosted monitoring and enforcement service. The Compliance Enforcer includes a license for a single host. Please visit www.catbird.com/complianceenforcer for more information.

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