Test Center Tracker: Proventia’s spyware stalker

Fresh from the Test Center: Bells and whistles can get a bit irritating at times, so there’s something to say for good, solid, simple functionality. Therein lies the allure of the newest version of IBM’s ISS Proventia Desktop Endpoint Protection firewall. Roger A. Grimes had an opportunity to review the offering, and found it to be “a good host-based firewall with above-average features,” such as anti-virus, anti-malware, and buffer overflow exploit protection.

Dealing with the anti-open source clause: Fear of open-source software still permeates in some organizations, as evidenced by clauses in licenses insisting that “the Software provided, or to be provided, by Company in the manner licensed under this Agreement does not and shall not contain any software covered by a GNU license or other “open source” license.” Open Sources blogger Matt Asay attributes this type of fine print to ignorance of what open source is about. But he has some useful suggestions as to how to deal with it.

MS celebrates client security shipment: Redmond has let loose a couple of desktop-defense tools: the Forefront Client Security RTM, and its System Center Essentials 2007 package — a collection of desktop and server management tools for small and medium-sized businesses, reports Matt Hines in the Zero Day blog. The company is celebrating the integration of its security offerings, something it asserts it can do better than security vendors out there. “Customer interest is being driven around the idea of security that is integrated with their existing Windows environments that works with Active Directory,” said Steve Brown, Microsoft’s director of product management for security and access products.