Hirsch Electronics has teamed up with Juniper Networks and Infoblox to tie physical and network security together, aiming at increasing protection for both environments. The company claims that with its new offering, customers can improve security and compliance efforts by establishing physical presence as a policy for having access to various network resources.
According to Hirsch, the new offering was implemented by the three companies using the open Trusted Network Connect architecture and IF-MAP open-standard protocol for metadata exchange endorsed by more than 100 companies that comprise the Trusted Computing Group (TCG).
Stephen Hanna, co-chair of TCG’s Trusted Network Connect Work Group, said: This is an excellent proof-point for how extensible the Trusted Network Connect architecture and TCG’s specifications are. Through TCG’s IF-MAP protocol, physical security events can now trigger network security enforcement policies and vice-versa. Hirsch’s support and innovative collaboration with other TCG members Juniper and Infoblox has demonstrated that TNC can be deployed to make security pervasive in any organisation.
Hirsch said that the new Hirsch Velocity Security Management System sent IF-MAP based physical event messages (metadata) to the Infoblox appliance, which in turn notified the Juniper network appliance that enforced Network Access Control (NAC) policies. NAC, embraced by the IT and networking industry, is expected to enforce a variety of network security policy checks.
Bob Beliles, vice president of enterprise business development for Hirsch Electronics, said: With this multi-vendor effort, we are on the cusp of delivering a comprehensive security solution with policy enforcement from building entrance to the computer and phone to the ‘cloud,’. At a minimum, by requiring employees to badge-in prior to gaining network access, organisations should see a significant reduction in ‘tailgating’.”
