HP ProCurve gets close to edge with security

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HP's networking arm ProCurve Networking launched new products aimed at securing infrastructure by integrating security software onto network switches themselves.

Aimed at providing customers with reliable network protection and comprehensive network access control, the company unveiled its ProCurve Network Immunity Manager security management application. The application is a plug-in to ProCurve Manager Plus 2.2 and automatically responds to detected threats to provide protection against zero day and known virus attacks in both wired and wireless networks.

It also launched a free upgrade to its ProCurve Identity Driven Manager (IDM) security application, which the company said provided enhanced policy management, greater information accessibility for better support and improved product scalability. The application offers dynamic integration with Microsoft Active Directory. The upgrade is expected to be available in the third quarter of this year.

The company also announced plans to introduce new NAC appliance. Called Network Access Controller 800, the device will work alongside Procurve's IDM product to prevent security breaches by controlling which users have access to systems and how they connect across both wired and wireless networks.

Paul Congdon, chief technology officer and security business director at ProCurve Networking said the new products offered companies a "pro-active defence" that would take action to secure networks before threats occurred.

"Before you get on the network, we check you for vulnerabilities, for your identity, location and time. The Identity Driven Manager is our tool that gives you the policy configuration interface to do that," said Congdon.

He added that once on the network the Network Immunity Manager provided anomaly detection.

Congdon said the biggest difference between what ProCurve offered with these products and what rival Cisco offered was that ProCurve used the network Lan edge, the closest point of attachment to the user, as the tool for enforcement.

"We go right to the Lan edge, whether it's wired or wireless, and do enforcement at the closest point of attachment. We have extended threat management all the way across the Lan to the network edge, not just at the Wan perimeter."

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