ADVISORY/ Security Pain Points of Government Markets; 'Top Ten' Government Security Concerns Identified.

Business/Technology Editors

ADVISORY...

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

The White House was prepared for the programmed DDoS attack imbedded in the recent Code Red worm. They avoided the attack by taking the drastic measure of moving the White House's official site to a different IP address. Code Red is just the latest example of how the government, as a habitual target for security breaches, must continually reassess critical security risks. OKENA, Inc., a leading developer of proactive security software, has identified the critical security pain points that are at the forefront of government IT issues, derived from first-hand interactions with government customers and industry experts. Among these ten security pain points are:

Securing against growing use of the Internet: Competitive pressures are forcing government agencies to open their networks, increasing security risks dramatically. These eBusiness initiatives are not optional plans--they are strategy musts for servicing the public.

Insider abuse: According to respondents to an FBI/CSI survey, 38% of the attacks detected were the result of malicious insider activity. This includes launching cyber-attacks, stealing government data and mis-configuring systems. Traditional, user-based access control is prohibitively inflexible, perimeter products are ineffective against internal users and privileged users can run privileged attacks.

Securing Remote laptops: Federal employees frequently take government technology assets on the road with them for use from homes, business sites and hotel rooms. Maintaining the integrity of these resources entails high security expenses and time commitments from IT departments, with mobile computing technology proving more difficult to secure than desktops and servers.

Meeting Government Information Security Reform Act: The Office of Management and Budget has set a September 30 deadline whereby CIOs and inspectors general of federal agencies must report on the agency's security programs and practices. GISRA sends all agencies the message that a heightened level of accountability is needed in order for their security initiatives to be successful.

"With the government sector's wide breadth of security concerns, agencies are realizing that it is not in their best interest to merely react to various breaches, but to prevent them from happening in the first place," said Dale McCloskey, government security specialist, OKENA, Inc. "By deploying a centralized and proactive security system, federal agencies can prevent intrusions and maintain privacy under one security umbrella while staying abreast of the most current vulnerabilities."

A full list of the top ten pain points is available at http://www.okena.com/company/federal_agencies.html.

OKENA develops security software products that proactively preserve the operational integrity of applications and host systems. OKENA's flagship product, StormWatch(TM), prevents intrusions from executing by repelling new attacks directly on the servers and desktops to be protected.

If you would like to speak to OKENA about government security pain points, Dale McCloskey, government security specialist at OKENA, has more than 12 years of experience in government security issues. Please contact Meghan Fitzgerald at Schwartz Communications, [phone] or [e-mail].