In-Depth
CA Announces Integrated Content Security Management
Product offers single console for viewing security policy compliance and enterprise-wide content-related security trends.
Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) announced it will release eTrust Secure Content Management later this year. The software will help organizations keep corporate content confidential and arrest malicious code that could destroy or alter that content.
The timing of CA’s announcement of the addition to its eTrust antivirus product line may be in response to competitor Microsoft’s own recent antivirus announcement. (See "Microsoft Entering Antivirus Market" at http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=1806).
Whereas Microsoft will further integrate antivirus protection into its products, the CA announcement takes a different tack: boiling down the number of security products used throughout the enterprise and creating a single security manager interface.
“Piecemeal approaches to information security are ineffective, expensive, and difficult to manage,” says Toby Weiss, a CA eTrust senior vice president. “The increasing complexity of content security requires a more comprehensive approach.” That approach, he notes, is integration. In particular, CA says its product will help customers more easily manage and enforce security policies, deal with government regulations, limit legal liability, reduce network bandwidth consumption (including peer-to-peer file transfer blocking), and free employees from dealing with electronic threats and nuisances. An integrated approach may also save customers time and money by buying and managing fewer products.
It also means that security managers get a view of what’s really happening across the enterprise, instead of trying to piece together information from unconnected software. “The integrated approach offered by CA’s eTrust Secure Content Management helps move IT from fire-fighting mode to pro-active risk minimization,” says International Data Corp. research manager Brian Burke. “Moreover, it can offload some spam management and Web filtering tasks from overburdened IT departments to users.”
Key features of eTrust Secure Content Management will include integrated, enterprise-wide policy management; e-mail and Web traffic scanning to detect and block unacceptable content; tools for delegating spam and URL blocking to select individuals; keyword searching of information to prevent leaks of corporate secrets; and an interface that displays Internet content trends and security events for the whole enterprise.
CA anticipates an October 2003 release.
About the Author
Mathew Schwartz is a Contributing Editor for Enterprise Systems and is its Security Strategies column, as well as being a long-time contributor to the company's print publications. Mr. Schwartz is also a security and technology freelance writer.