nCircle Announces Self-Service Security and Compliance Portal, Enhanced Auditing Of Virtualized Environments

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- Mar 01, 2010 nCircle, the leader in automated IT security and compliance auditing solutions, today announced the release of new audience-specific security risk and compliance dashboards and enhanced auditing of virtual IT infrastructures. The new dashboards are part of nCircle's self-service security and compliance portal and provide role-based visibility into an organization's IT governance, risk and compliance (IT GRC) processes. nCircle also delivers security and compliance auditing of VMWare-based virtual infrastructures, a key area of investment in today's enterprises.

nCircle Suite360's Self-service Security and Compliance Portal

Today's IT organizations face increasing pressure to not only improve the security of their networks, but also to demonstrate their effectiveness and to prove that they are maintaining compliance with industry and government regulations. However, enterprises have had difficulty finding tools that both improve security and compliance and deliver clear evidence of such success with objective metrics and reporting for senior management. nCircle Suite360 delivers the proof with new security risk and compliance analytics and audience-specific reporting dashboards for IT security, IT audit, IT operations and executives.

Suite360 now delivers the industry's most advanced security risk and compliance analytics. User-programmable dashboards deliver the right information to the right audience:

Risk and compliance trends for executives

Current compliance posture vs. target, with detailed drill down for auditors

Instant visibility to security issues across the enterprise for IT security

Prioritized remediation instructions with role-based asset views for IT operations

For the first time, enterprises can visit a central portal to get the actionable security and compliance information that matters to them. Asset views enable analysis of security and compliance audit data by any business dimension, including asset type, asset owner, geography or business unit. Annotation capabilities enable administrators to explain deviations directly in the reports for improved understanding by multiple audiences. Suite360 enables all IT audiences to view the security and compliance status of their networks and clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts and investments.

"In a security environment characterized by ever more sophisticated attacks and adversaries, checkbox compliance and routine scans of IT infrastructure aren't sufficient," said Paul Roberts, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Security, 451Group. "IT professionals need comprehensive security and compliance audit data that prioritizes issues based on both compliance objectives and a nuanced understanding of overall risk. Finally, enterprises need integrated reports that are tailored to diverse audiences: senior executives, and specialists in both security and IT operations."

"IT organizations are increasingly being asked to justify their technology investments," said Mark Wood, Vice President of Product Management at nCircle. "nCircle Suite360 now provides everyone in IT, from executives to operations, with the tools to track their progress and prove that their efforts are improving security and compliance."

nCircle Suite360 is "Virtual-infrastructure Ready"

The use of virtualized infrastructure in the enterprise has grown rapidly in recent years and is now a critical tool for enterprises, enabling server consolidation, more efficient data center management and other cost reductions. However, the spread of virtualization has created new security and compliance issues, requiring continuous auditing of the virtual infrastructure to maintain security and compliance.

nCircle Suite360 now audits the full virtual infrastructure, from virtual machines to the hypervisor, on VMWare-based systems. Suite360 audits the configurations of an organization's virtual infrastructure and compares them to Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks, or hardening guides, to ensure the security of virtual machines and their hypervisor. The CIS benchmarks are accepted best practices for secure operation of VMware virtual machines and hypervisors. Additionally, Suite360 can continuously monitor hypervisors and virtual machines to ensure configurations remain compliant with the "gold standard" build, making the administration of these systems considerably easier and more efficient.

"Virtualization provides cost savings and helps streamline IT deployments, but it also creates significant new security and compliance challenges," added Wood. "nCircle Suite360 continuously monitors the virtual infrastructure, identifying security issues and misconfigurations to help our customers maintain the highest levels of security and compliance."

nCircle will demonstrate the new self-service security and compliance portal and enhanced virtualization support at RSA 2010 from March 1-4.

About nCircle Suite360

nCircle provides the world's most comprehensive suite of solutions for agentless security and configuration auditing for physical and virtual IT environments. nCircle's solutions combine the broadest discovery of networked systems and their operating systems, applications, vulnerabilities and configurations with advanced analytics to help enterprises reduce security risk and achieve compliance. nCircle's solutions include IP360 for vulnerability and risk management, WebApp360 for web application vulnerability auditing, Configuration Compliance Manager (CCM) for configuration auditing and file integrity monitoring, Certified PCI Scan Service for on-demand self-service PCI scanning, and Security Intelligence Hub for IT governance, risk and compliance (ITGRC) reporting and analytics.

About nCircle.

nCircle is the leading provider of automated security and compliance auditing solutions. More than 4,500 enterprises, government agencies and service providers around the world rely on nCircle's proactive solutions to manage and reduce security risk and achieve compliance on their networks. nCircle has won numerous awards for growth, innovation, customer satisfaction and technology leadership. nCircle is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with regional offices throughout the United States and in London and Toronto. Additional information about nCircle is available at www.ncircle.com.

nCircle is a registered trademark of nCircle Network Security, Inc. All other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

Shev Rush PR Shelley Boose, 408-398-6987