Third-Party Products

Windows NT security and procedures are not comprehensive enough to provide total protection. A number of third-party products provide services that are important for protecting your business. The following families of products should be considered when creating a security plan: Authentication. Windows NT 5.0 will contain Kerberos authentication, but until you have NT 5.0 rolled out to your entire enterprise, you may want to consider products such as Entrust Public-Key Infrastructure software from Entrust Technologies (www.entrust.com) to harden authentication. Encryption. Sending sensitive data over the wires and maintaining it in clear text isn't a necessary risk anymore. A number of encryption products on the market provide virtual private networks (VPN), e-mail encryption, and file encryption. Monitoring. Once you've set up your security configuration, be sure to monitor its compliance, detect intrusions, discover the suspicious behavior of insiders, and perform damage assessment with information risk-management tool sets from third-party vendors. Antivirus programs and firewalls. Although available in commercial products, these two capabilities are being absorbed into the operat-ing system, but they aren't completely effective yet. There are a number of excellent third-party vendors for both services.