22 April 2002 Computer Associates (CA) has announced a new security product to provide users with information on physical and IT security. Part of CA’s eTrust family of security products, eTrust 20/20 is also the first CA product to be sold only on a subscription basis.
ETrust 20/20 collects data from multiple sources, including both physical access control points, such as biometric scanners, and IT security systems. It then integrates the data from these hardware and software access systems.
The product also has a highly visual user interface, developed from technology within CA’s MultiGen-Paradigm subsidiary, which develops 3D simulation technologies. Data can then be presented clearly in the user interface, saving users the trouble of having to manually go through masses of data to discover possible security threats, said CA CEO Sanjay Kumar.
Such visualisation technology in eTrust 20/20 represents a “preview” for what CA plans to incorporate into new products in the future, said Kumar.
ETrust 20/20 also uses rules-based technology to try and identify each employee’s normal behavioural patterns. While there may be a number of “false alerts” in the early days of implementation, Kumar said that the system will gradually learn what is “normal”, as the systems’ rules are adjusted to fit the company’s needs.
In the future, eTrust 20/20 will also be able to take live feeds from video surveillance cameras, making it even easier to double check data integrity – users can have video cameras trained on their hardware to see who may be physically accessing them out of hours, for example.
ETrust 20/20 can also link to CA’s main enterprise management suite, Unicenter TND, which has a trend monitoring system that can also send out alerts.
However, this technology will not come cheap. The cost of eTrust 20/20 depends on the number of employees and data feeds within an organisation and can range from “a few tens of thousands of dollars to millions, depending on complexity,” said Kumar. For example, customers can choose to have different types of visualisation technology according to their needs and price requirements.
While this is a subscription only product, it is not a managed service. The product comes with an on-site engineer for the first 90 days to help set up the system and pull all the access control systems together. Thereafter, a CA engineer is sent to the customer site for 5 days every month to ensure the product’s smooth running.
CA has trialled the product internally with 650 employees, and expects to conduct customer trials this summer. A full commercial launch is scheduled for later in 2002.
