Avenda Systems Helps Control and Secure Personal Devices in the Enterprise

Device Identification and Differentiated Access Reporting Enable Company and Privately Owned Devices to Securely Coexist in the Enterprise

Avenda Systems, a provider of network access security solutions, today announced new features within its eTIPS platform that enable customers to efficiently allow or deny the use of personal devices for workplace applications.

In a trend that mirrors the invasion of the corporate world in the 1980’s by personal computers, today’s employees are beginning to use consumer-oriented technology like the iPad and smartphones to do business – and this means stress and security concerns related to the use of approved and non-approved devices, and internal compliance issues.

Avenda’s eTIPS platform allows IT groups to create policies that tie together a user’s identity and role to a device type and status, which can include IT defined device-based attributes. Avenda’s solution gives customers visibility and control over who is allowed to use a personal device at work and what portions of the network they can access.

“The ability to quickly adapt the network to support these new devices is a key security advantage in the financial industry, as regulations and auditing are a large part of the business,” said Henry Mayorga, Manager of Network Technology at Baron Capital Management in New York City. “The fact that Avenda’s solution works well with our Cisco infrastructure, was easy to deploy, and is reasonably priced makes it ideal for any industry.”

Avenda’s deployment and security benefits now include:

• Support for Windows, Mac OS X, Mac iOS, Android and Linux devices

• Ability to fingerprint operating system characteristics for use within policies

• Real-time device transaction views and compliance reporting

Statistics from an RSA-sponsored survey released earlier this year revealed that 23 percent of the largest organizations surveyed have experienced a serious breach or incident because of a personal device on the corporate network. Additionally, nearly 60 percent said that unauthorized connections to the corporate network occur in spite of efforts to prevent them. In a separate report released by Cisco in November, the majority of employees (66 percent) responding to a survey, believe they should be able to connect freely with any device – personal or company-issued – and access the applications and information that they need around the clock.

“Creative new applications for the iPad and other emerging tablet PCs are driving enterprise requirements to support these new devices regardless of who owns them,” said Krishna Prabhakar, CEO of Avenda Systems. “Customers are proactively looking to securely support personal devices, as the productivity benefits and the fast adoption by users are hard to ignore.”