Symantec Upgrades ESM Policy Management Solution

The product now includes out-of-the-box assessment capabilities for vertical industries that are subject to enhanced privacy and standards regulations. ESM, for example, is now shipping with predefined assessment templates to help customers comply with HIPAA, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, ISO 17799 and other industry standards and regulations.

"We've seen a significant rise in the type of regulations and privacy standards a lot of vertical markets have to pay attention to now," said Mark Ungerman, director of product management at Symantec, Cupertino, Calif. "This is now a major driver, and companies are spending more time and effort to make sure they comply with these regulations and that they are integrated into their existing security policies and practices."

In addition to supporting such platforms as Windows, NetWare and Unix, ESM now supports Windows 2003 and IBM's i-series. In addition, ESM also supports some of the major application delivery platforms beyond the operating system level to check the security settings in Oracle and IBM databases and Web servers including IIS, Apache and iPlanet.

Lastly, Symantec has added transition tools that allow ESM to integrate with its Security Management System.

"This [transition tools are] essentially a data bridge and a great opportunity for consultants to wrap some consulting services around," said Ungerman. "This basically allows for ESM to conduct a compliance assessment, and through the data bridge, integrate that data with the Security Management System so it shows up at a centralized monitoring station that the management system supports."

Administrators can then integrate this information with the other security data that technicians are monitoring and dispatch technicians to resolve the issue and bring a system back into compliance.

ESM is sold through about 80 certified Symantec partners. The ESM Agent (VMS/iSeries Agents) costs $1,995, the ESM Manager costs $2,394, the ESM Workstation Agent (Windows/Unix) costs $114 and the ESM Agent with additional CPU costs $474, according to the company.