About Sygate Technologies

Sygate Technologies, Inc., founded in 1995, has a proven reputation for creating innovative networking and security technologies. Sygate Technologies currently serves more than two million networks worldwide with high-performance Internet access management and security products designed to meet the unique networking needs of the mobile enterprise.

Sygate provides enterprise-class software solutions that protect network assets by securing Internet devices, mobile computers and corporate desktops from intrusion and misuse. Utilizing Sygate solutions, organizations can turn written security policy into operational reality by extending it to their weakest link, the distributed workforce. Armed with the Sygate solution, organizations can enforce consistent enterprise-wide security policy, defend corporate assets against intruders, and assess and control enterprise-wide security posture.

By proactively reducing an organization's exposure to attack, Sygate protects the most precious corporate asset, information. Understanding the dynamic nature of distributed computing, Sygate recognizes roaming profiles and automatically adjusts to secure mobile users. Ensuring only trusted use of network resources complements existing security frameworks and makes the Sygate solution an excellent return on investment.

The Market

Enterprise IT departments have traditionally deployed corporate firewall solutions to protect their networks. Such corporate firewalls are traditionally thought to protect the network's PCs and servers inside the corporate network from known intruders. However, increased use of the Internet and subsequent growth of the mobile workforce have brought about an entirely new set of security issues.

The explosive growth of the "Internet as the corporate network" has lead to an increase of mobile and wireless users, telecommuters, and branch office workers who use Internet appliances, laptops and desktop computers to access the corporate network via the Internet. This mobile workforce is further enabled with broadband connections and VPN solutions to provide reliable Internet access. This distributed workforce jeopardizes the fortified corporate network and represents today's greatest security risk, as the protection of the corporate firewall does not extend to those users. It is therefore increasingly easier for hackers to penetrate those laptops and PCs over the Internet, take over the identity of the user and then gain access to corporate resources via the corporate VPN. From there they can steal files, access databases or launch attacks on other enterprises such as the recent well publicized Denial-of-Service (DOS) attacks.

As a result, IT managers are looking for new security solutions to adequately extend and enforce their corporate security policies to all mobile users. They are determined to take back control of the security for those devices through solutions that can be managed from a central site, as they are increasingly made responsible for any network security problems that the company might face.

At the same time, IT managers are now also starting to realize that hackers can just as easily penetrate corporate firewalls within trusted traffic, such as email and web traffic, in order to insert small programs on corporate PCs; programs that are then used to capture passwords and monitor network traffic in order to gain access to corporate servers. So far, such security breaches behind the firewall have gone mostly undetected, or kept fairly confidential until the highly publicized Microsoft case in October 2000.

The Sygate Solution

Sygate's client-server solution complements existing security frameworks with a centralized IT control station and a customizable distributed security agent, giving IT the power to:

• Enforce consistent enterprise-wide security policy, for the best possible prevention against hacker attacks
  
  
• Defend corporate assets against intruders, with real-time, bi-directional detection and response to new security threats.
  
  
• Assess security posture, with rapid and accurate visibility into and justification of enterprise-wide security measures.
  
  
• Control security for the distributed workforce, with powerful, centrally managed tools that fine-tune security policy and allow rapid response to security emergencies.
  
  

Enforcing Security Policy

By implementing the Sygate solution, organizations can turn written security policy into operational reality and eliminate security blunders caused by the human factor. Our centrally managed solution gives IT the control they need to ensure enterprise-wide implementation of corporate security measures, even as mobile users roam among different computing environments. Sygate's additional layers of security, throughout the distributed workforce, complement existing security frameworks and provide an excellent return on investment by ensuring only trusted use of network resources, which closes the network "back door" and frustrates would-be intruders.

Defending Corporate Assets

While prevention reduces the chance of becoming a target, defense deals with an attack, or worse yet, an intrusion. Sygate allows organizations to proactively defend networked devices from inevitable attacks with multiple layers of security. Our host/application-based profiling capabilities bring security policy to the network layer by only allowing trusted application usage in conjunction with trusted users. By noticing any deviation from trusted application or user behavior patterns, Sygate detects, blocks and responds to the previously undiscovered threats in real-time. Our integrated firewall technology bi-directionally monitors and blocks unauthorized communication by any application, using any port, protocol, or IP address on any device. By protecting corporate data and resources from attack, Sygate minimizes recovery costs and corporate liability.

Assessing Security Posture

By providing visibility over enterprise-wide security posture, Sygate allows organizations to understand, justify and maximize the effectiveness of their ongoing security efforts. Advanced logging and reporting on the number, nature, and severity of system security risks and attacks help IT fine-tune security policies while justifying security measures to upper management. Integrated vulnerability assessment capabilities allow IT to be proactive in securing their systems by finding and closing security holes before would-be attackers can use them. Additionally, Sygate's forensic capabilities help IT trace the source of attempted intrusions and enable organizational response to attack.

Controlling Security Posture

Visibility allows organizations to assess security posture; however, without the ability to implement security measures, security policy is nothing more than a piece of paper. The Sygate solution provides powerful, centrally managed tools that fine-tune security policy and allow rapid response to security emergencies. Armed with the Sygate solution, organizations can determine and adjust security status on any system at any particular time, audit and maximize the effectiveness of their entire security policy, and maximize return on investment for enterprise-wide security measures in an ongoing cycle of intrusion defense.