Network access control (NAC) is a burgeoning market in the IT industry. Value-added resellers and systems integrators need a familiarity with the youthful NAC market so as to make smart recommendations to their customers that will remain viable in the future. Here we get an idea of what's to come in the NAC market, who the players are and how those players will stand up to the test of time.
Keeping pace with emerging endpoint security technologies
The network endpoint as we know it is dead. A firewall alone can no longer protect the corporate network from potentially dangerous endpoints introduced by remote users, partners, contractors, even malicious intruders. Vendors have responded to this de-perimeterization of corporate networks with products designed to perform "health checks" of connecting devices, permitting access based on the security status of the endpoint. The challenge for security practitioners is to choose the correct endpoint security solution for their network environment.
There are currently three major players in the endpoint security space, each offering a different solution:
Learn more about the growing network access control market as well as its players, from the big three to the many smaller contenders looking to make their mark.
About the author
Ben Rothke, CISSP, is the Director of Security Technology Implementation for a large financial services company. He has more than 15 years of industry experience in the area of information systems security and privacy, and his areas of expertise are in risk management and mitigation, PKI, security and privacy regulation, design and implementation of systems security, encryption and security policy development. Prior to joining his current firm, Rothke was with ThruPoint, Baltimore Technologies, Ernst & Young, and Citicorp, and has provided security solutions to many Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of Computer Security -- 20 Things Every Employee Should Know (McGraw-Hill 2006), and a contributing author to Network Security: The Complete Reference (Osborne) and The Handbook of Information Security Management (Auerbach).
