ForeScout Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of real-time network security solutions for Fortune 1000 enterprises and government organizations, announced that Network Products Guide has named ForeScout a Gold winner of the 8^th Annual 2013 Hot Companies and Best Products Awards in the Business Expansion of the Year category. ForeScout was also an Honorable Mention for the Hot Companies list, and ForeScout’s leading network access control (NAC) solution was selected as a Bronze winner in the Governance Risk & Compliance category as well as the Security Hardware category.

ForeScout’s global business has expanded rapidly as the company’s bookings increased by more than 66 percent while its installed base grew to 1,400 global customers in 2012.  ForeScout’s continued growth is due in part to the resurgence of the NAC market, which in 2012 grew to an estimated $392 million, and is predicted to reach $1 billion by 2017 according to the Ogren Group research report “Network Access Control: A Strong Resurgence is Underway [1].”

ForeScout is positioned in the “Leaders” quadrant in the Gartner Inc. 2012 Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control [2] (NAC) and Frost & Sullivan [3] has acclaimed the company as the largest independent NAC vendor and one that is growing the fastest in the market.

The Network Products Guide industry and peer recognitions are the world’s premier information technology awards honoring achievements in every facet of the IT industry. Winners from all over the world were honored in Las Vegas on Tuesday, May 7, 2013.  

“Being vigilant in regards to updating signatures and reputation lists, or monitoring for network anomalies is no longer good enough,” said Morris Altman, director of network services and information security officer at Queens College. “With FireEye and ForeScout, we know the details, security posture and activity of all devices on our network, and we can automatically isolate violations, malware and affected systems before anything gets out of hand.”

The FireEye platform creates a cross-enterprise threat protection fabric using a next-generation threat detection engine, dynamic threat intelligence and interoperability with a broad ecosystem of technology alliance partners to secure all major threat vectors and enable rapid detection, validation and response to cyberattacks. Partner integrations, such as that with ForeScout, can utilize FireEye APIs and standards-based Threat Intelligence Metadata to address the network visibility, endpoint validation and enforcement options needed by today’s organizations to automate key cybersecurity workflows.

ForeScout CounterACT® is a real-time security platform that delivers complete visibility and automated control for all devices, users, systems and applications attempting to connect to an enterprise network – wired or wireless, managed or unmanaged, PC or mobile. Working together, FireEye MPS (malware protection system) identifies attacks and blocks any outbound malware activity while simultaneously informing CounterACT of the affected system and threat severity. In turn, CounterACT applies an enforcement policy, which may include:  quarantining the endpoint; blocking or limiting specific communications between the endpoint and other systems; reporting rich details about the endpoint; notifying the end-user and/or administrator; and triggering system remediation.

“In order to satisfy business demand for greater accessibility and device diversity, organizations require better coordinated controls to address broader, faster and more sophisticated threats” said Gil Friedrich, vice president of technology at ForeScout. “The joint ForeScout – FireEye solution not only provides an effective means to detect advanced threats, but an efficient way to thwart such attacks before they can do significant damage – demonstrating the value of security control automation.”

Together ForeScout CounterACT and the FireEye platforms offer enterprises:

• Automated breach response in real time - Take decisive and automated actions for any compromised devices on your network. When FireEye MPS determines that an endpoint may have been compromised, it can prevent data exfiltration and notify ForeScout CounterACT to quarantine the endpoint and optionally initiate remediation based on device type, location, severity and other policy elements.
• Real-time visibility - Readily gain operating and security details of all devices on your network, including unauthorized devices, BYOD devices, those with configuration violations and those that have been breached.
• Endpoint security assurance - Reduce enterprise risk by ensuring that endpoints have complete, updated and active defenses according to policy. ForeScout CounterACT works without requiring agents to provide find and fix security gaps on both systems you own and those you do not.
• Flexible, policy enforcement - FireEye MPS leverages ForeScout CounterACT’s mechanisms to enforce security policies using ACL, Firewall, WLAN and VLAN assignment and unique ForeScout Virtual Firewall technology to isolate all or specified endpoint communications.
• Layered defense for advanced threats - FireEye MPS real-time protection stops APTs regardless of whether they are incoming, propagating or actively exfiltrating data. As part of a layered defense, FireEye MSP complements ForeScout’s ActiveResponse™ technology within ForeScout CounterACT that blocks attack behavior.

The ForeScout CounterACT plug-in for FireEye is available to CounterACT customers under active maintenance at no additional charge.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control

According to Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control”², “the BYOD trend continues to be the major driver in NAC adoption. NAC vendors must have flexible approaches (partnerships and/or internally developed capabilities) for enforcing policies on the use of personally owned devices. Mobility and bring your own device (BYOD) trends have increased demand, and the largest NAC suppliers have seen strong increases in growth. Driven by these trends, we expect market growth of approximately 63 percent in 2013, as businesses are spending on mobile device management (MDM) and NAC as the primary means for meeting demand of personally owned smartphones and tablets, while containing risks.”

In this report³, leaders are successful in selling large NAC implementations (10,000 nodes and greater) to multiple large enterprises. Leaders are pure-play NAC vendors or networking and/or security companies that have been first to market with enhanced capabilities as the market matures. Leaders have the resources to maintain their commitment to NAC, have strong channel strength and have financial resources. They have also demonstrated a strong understanding of the future direction of NAC, including the impact of BYOD. Leaders should not equate to a default choice for every buyer, and clients should not assume that they must buy only from vendors in the Leaders’ quadrant.

According to Gartner⁴, the knowledge and experience gained in establishing and enforcing network access control (NAC) policies for corporate-owned laptops can be extended to apply policies for personally owned devices. A combination of NAC and MDM can enable a flexible BYOD environment with an acceptable level of risk for many organizations. NAC can be used to check for the presence of an MDM agent. Endpoints that do not have the agent can be blocked or granted limited access (for example, Internet access only). NAC can ensure that employees must comply with MDM policies if they wish to gain access to the corporate network. Building operational processes (for example, automating mobile device registration) is key to scaling a BYOD project.

ForeScout CounterACT is an automated security control platform that allows you to see and control everything that is connected to the network – enabling companies to let employees and guests seamlessly use personal devices on the network without compromising security. Delivered as a fully integrated appliance (physical or virtual), CounterACT is simple to deploy as it requires no agents and leverages the existing network. CounterACT key features include:

• Hybrid NAC Platform
• Broadest BYOD and MDM Support
• Roles-based Access Control
• Endpoint Compliance
• Scalability and Manageability
• Government Approved

ForeScout helps enterprises solve accessibility security risks with a family of automated solutions for network access control, mobile security, endpoint compliance and threat prevention. ForeScoutCounterACT™ and CounterACT Edge™can be deployed across the distributed enterprise to deliver network asset intelligence, authenticated access control, regulatory compliance with reporting and enforcement options, remediation and more.  The solutions are delivered as a virtual appliance or physical appliance with models that scale to support mid-tier to large distributed enterprises.

“We are very pleased to welcome RAH Infotech to the ForeScout family as an authorized Value Added Distributor. The partnership with RAH Infotech with its solid reputation, proven expertise, excellent references and well-founded service offerings is sure to be highly successful and valued by our mutual partners and customers,” said Marc Fernandez, vice president of APAC sales at ForeScout.

“ForeScout provides its resellers a wealth of opportunities to offer best-of-breed real-time network security solutions and services like network visibility and asset intelligence, access control, mobile security and endpoint remediation while also freeing up IT resources for other activities. ForeScout’s award winning CounterACT platform has the power, simplicity and revenue potential to make our partners profitable and our customers happy,” said Mr. DalipArora, COO, RAH Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Once you arrive on campus, you can do this by connecting to the Johnson University SSID (wireless) or use an ethernet cord plugged into an ethernet port in your residence.

When prompted for a username and password, enter your Johnson University credentials in the form of First.Last and the corresponding password – this would be the same password you use for accessing your Johnson University email.

If you have two separate devices – such as a laptop and a desktop, you’ll need to register each of those devices.  Registering one device does not register all your devices.

The following device types do not need to be registered at this time:

• gaming consoles
• entertainment appliances
• mobile/phone devices
• tablets/slates/readers

Installation of the SecureConnector Agent is not required at the time.

If you have questions about device registration, please contact the IT Dept. directly.

Upon return to campus however, any laptop or desktop device you plan to use on the network, must still be registered using your JohnsonU username and password.  You can do so by connecting to either the wired or wireless (Johnson University SSID) networks, opening a browser window and following the on-screen instructions.

You may recall that the Conficker attack has almost been detected almost immediately but the Stuxnet had managed to go undetected despite similar propagation methods – According to security expert, ForeScout; Stuxnet moves “low and slow” in order to not trigger traditional network security alarms. Comparing itself to mainstream security providers, “ForeScout products contain a unique blend of technologies that require no signature updates to be effective.  During the entire 100-day window that Stuxnet was in the wild, ForeScout customers were able to block the Stuxnet worm.”

ForeScout released a chart on its ability to detect/block propagation methods deployed by Stuxnet.

For more information, please visit: http://www.forescout.com/blog/?p=198