Whale and Secoda introduce first solution to enforce regulatory compliance for employees and third parties
London, 26 April 2005 – Whale Communications, the leading enterprise level SSL VPN provider, and compliance and policy management specialists, Secoda Risk Management, today announced a joint solution which forges the missing link between corporate policy awareness and auditable secure remote access. This is the first solution that does more than report on regulatory compliance by actually enabling enforcement. For the first time, business has a practical tool to ensure that remote workers – employees and contractors alike – must comply with corporate security policies before they can access the network or use any applications remotely.
In the current regulatory environment, companies need to be vigilant and demonstrate adherence to best practices such as Basel II risk management, Sarbanes Oxley and BS7799/ISO17799 security standards. At the same time, business has been increasingly moving towards remote working and the adoption of SSL VPNs (Secure Socket Layer Virtual Private Networks) as a convenient and cost-effective method to deliver remote access to employees, partners and customers from any web-connected browser. Take up in the SSL VPN market has been considerable and continues to grow steadily. Datamonitor estimates that the global market will grow to $1bn in 2007. Synergy Research[1] suggests that SSL VPN sales will increase 184% year-over-year, with worldwide sales growing at around 20% pa in the period 2005-2010, reaching the range $900m to $950m.
“The biggest threat to businesses as they increasingly enable their employees to work remotely is the behaviour of those employees, accidentally or intentionally, leaving their IT infrastructure open to the outside world. This approach ensures that everyone accessing an organisation’s applications is authorized and that their understanding of the procedures affecting them can be controlled and monitored, providing an audit trail that can be used to check and modify employee behaviour,” said Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Ltd.
Tight integration between Whale’s e-Gap? SSL VPN and Secoda’s RuleSafeâ„?, provides an end-to-end solution for online management and enforcement of both awareness and acceptance of corporate policies. In practice what this means is that if companies so desire, they now have the ability to block remote users from accessing their applications and information remotely until these users have signalled understanding and acceptance of corporate policies and regulations. Workers can enjoy the benefits of efficient and secure remote access at the same time as knowing they are adhering to corporate security policies. The joint solution provides clear visibility of the current level of compliance within an organization.
“Regulatory issues are placing an increasing burden on businesses, which are seeking to go about their daily work effectively while complying with emerging standards and regulations. Through this joint solution, we are offering companies access to an effective compliance-aware front end that eases this burden and at the same time improves their business performance,” said Daniel Steiner, Whale’s President.
“By adding our policy management engine to Whale’s SSL VPN we are securing a loop hole in companies’ compliance management. By carrying out gap analysis and ensuring policy understanding and acceptance by all users across the VPN, companies can reduce vulnerability. Information security officers can now demonstrate effective security management to executive management, customers, suppliers and auditors,” said Adrian Wright, Managing Director of Secoda Risk Management. “In addition, working with Whale will provide us with a global route to market, and help to increase our visibility with the reseller channel.”
The joint solution will be demonstrated by Whale at the Infosecurity Europe show, stand 372.
About Whale Communications
Whale Communications is the leading enterprise-class SSL VPN vendor, enabling companies to provide employees, business partners and customers secure access to corporate data and applications from any web browser. Named a leader, visionary and tier-one SSL VPN player by major analysts such as Gartner/META Group, Forrester and Frost & Sullivan, Whale’s SSL VPN products have also won numerous industry awards such as Network Computing magazine’s Best SSL VPN for 2004. Its solutions have been securing enterprises worldwide since it was founded in 1998. Whale was named finalist in the SC Global Awards (Best VPN category) and the SC European Excellence Awards (Best Security Solution for Government and Best Security Solution for Healthcare categories). Privately held, Whale is funded by prominent venture firms and industry leaders, including Goldman Sachs, Soros Private Equity Partners and the BRM Group, the founding investor of Check Point Software Technologies. The company is headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey and has international offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv.
Whale Communications, e-Gap, Application Aware, Attachment Wiper, Whale and the Whale logo are trademarks of Whale Communications Ltd. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders. www.whalecommunications.com.
About e-Gap Remote Access Appliance
The e-Gap solutions enable companies to extend secure remote access to corporate data and applications beyond the corporate LAN to employees, business partners and customers anywhere, via a standard web browser. The products rest on an Application Awareâ„? foundation with an in-depth understanding of how applications work as well as their idiosyncrasies and limitations, permitting unmatched levels of security, flexibility, usability, customizability and integration with existing systems. The increase in productivity has a direct positive impact on return on investment and in many cases, revenue generation.
About Secoda Risk Management
Secoda is the global leader in policy awareness solutions, formed out of the vision of its founding partners who are information security professionals with over 60 years’ combined experience. In their capacity as senior security officers in FTSE listed companies, they saw the need for truly flexible and effective security solutions designed to enable managers to create, maintain and demonstrate a genuine ‘compliance culture’ across the enterprise. More information at: www.secoda.com
About RuleSafe:
RuleSafe manages complex sets of policies, allowing staff to navigate directly to just the most relevant information, and with role-based guidance according to their specific job. Staff can now view as much or as little information as they need, when they need it, and in a format most useful to them. A typical search can filter through several hundred internal policy statements, delivering a report listing just the few things most relevant to the user and the things they are working on.
Online audit and compliance screens facilitate the entry and display of scorecard data against each policy, region or infrastructure and allow risk owners to generate instant reports showing current compliance status and highlighting specific problem areas.
RuleSafe enables people in organisations to achieve real awareness of policies. Unique personalised reports help people understand exactly what is required of them for each particular task or project they undertake. RuleSafe’s expert content and compliance tracking helps organisations to implement security, privacy, regulatory and governance requirements.