Intel Security, ForeScout Team Up For Extended IoT, BYOD Security

ForeScout Technologies and Intel Security have teamed up yet again with an integration that works to better secure the Internet of Things and BYOD landscape and help partners extend their value with customers without deploying additional technology.

The news comes just a week before Intel Security's Focus 15 partner event in Las Vegas.

Specifically, the integration ties together the ForeScout CounterAct security platform, which allows companies to identify, control and secure all devices connected to the network, with the McAfee Threat Intelligence Exchange (TIE) through the McAfee Data Exchange Layer (DXL). In doing that, ForeScout is now able to identify known and unknown devices connecting and already connected to the network and use the TIE to scan them for threats. It is also able to protect against IoT devices that cannot have software installed on them, as it is agentless.

[Related: ForeScout Adds FireEye CEO Dave DeWalt To Board Of Directors]

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Rob Greer, senior vice president of product and marketing at ForeScout, compared the challenge facing network security to the human body, which has to protect itself against germs that it's used to dealing with, as well as those that are yet unknown in the environment.

"There will always be bad things in the environment," Greer said. "As long as you have the right blood cells going after it or antibodies looking to protect you, then you will be fine." Similarly, Greer said the new integrated solution helps a company's network protect against known and unknown security issues in IoT and BYOD devices by identifying them, scanning them and the classifying them to ensure the right permissions and protections are in place.

The integration builds on a history of partnership between the two companies, with ForeScout being part of the company's Security Innovation Alliance since 2008 and later integrating with ePO Deep Command security management. ForeScout's own executives have a long connection with the company, with more than three executives including CEO Michael DeCesare coming from the company in recent months. DeCesare was president of McAfee from 2011 to 2015.

"We feel like we've been a longstanding partner [with Intel Security], and as a result we've had good collaboration with them early on," Greer said.

For partners, Greer said the integration means an opportunity to get more value from their existing investments as well as meet compliance needs around reporting connected devices. That, in turn, will allow partners to provide more comprehensive security offerings, he said.

"If I'm a partner, what this does is extend my value proposition beyond just the technology I've deployed, but allows customers to have a more thorough understanding of what is connecting and provide more protections on devices that they can't put their own software on," Greer said.

Trevor Smith, executive vice president at Brite Computers, a systems integrator based in Victor, N.Y., that specializes in delivering IT and security solutions to a variety of verticals, said the integration allows for a "unified solution" with the benefits of both TIE/DXL and CounterAct. As a partner of Intel Security and ForeScout, Smith said being able to leverage the intelligence from both parties form more informed decisions.

"Integration of security tools is seen as the next-generation security approach. Organizations have made significant investments in their security tools and it has become essential for them to work together in concert to defend against the continuous evolution of cybersecurity threats," Smith said.

That "next-generation security approach" using integrated tools is especially important with the rise of BYOD and IoT, Smith said.

"The average user possess 2.9 devices. This number continues to rise as newer devices, such as watches, hit the market. The ability to see and manage these devices is critical to securing the Internet," he said.

The solution is now generally available , Greer said. The entry cost for licenses up to 100 endpoints is $560 MSRP, with discounts for environments with 10,000 endpoints or greater.

PUBLISHED OCT. 21, 2015