AXENT Technologies Inc., announces availability of real-time monitoring and intrusion detection for Windows NT.

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28, 1996--AXENT(TM) Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:AXNT), Monday announced the availability of its OmniGuard/Intruder Alert (ITA) version 2.3 for Windows NT.

This release of ITA gives users the ability to monitor security-related events across UNIX, NetWare, and Windows NT and correlate those events to detect intruders, suspicious activity, or unauthorized uses of computing resources.

ITA version 2.3 runs on Novell NetWare versions 3.x and 4.x, including NDS, Windows NT versions 3.51 and 4.0 platforms and most major UNIX operating systems including HP-UX, AIX, Digital UNIX, Solaris, SunOS, IRIX on Silicon Graphics, and NCR MPRAS. Also included in this release is a Windows-based GUI that runs on Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows NT.

"Today, most IT organizations have lots of audit logs, the problem is they don't have enough people to review those logs. In addition, because these logs are produced by multiple servers running multiple operating systems, it is difficult to correlate audit events across different platforms. Even if suspicious activity is discovered in the audit logs, it is often too late to do anything about it," said Pete Privateer, AXENT's senior vice president of product operations.

"AXENT is very excited about this release of ITA because it will enable security managers to easily detect and automatically respond to unauthorized activity in a multi-platform LAN environment."

As more and more corporations connect their networks to the Internet, the opportunity for internal abuse and external intrusions is increasing dramatically. In a recent U.S. Department of Defense penetration test, attacks were mounted on 9,000 systems. Of those 9,000 attacks, 7,900 were successful and only 320 were detected. Of the 320 that were detected, only 15 systems responded to the attack.

While Internet firewalls provide a perimeter defense against external intruders, firewalls are far from foolproof and, if the perimeter defense is breached, the internal systems behind the firewall are vulnerable. ITA adds another layer of defense that can detect suspicious activity and stop intruders before they can gain access to the internal systems.

Not all threats are from external sources. A recent study by the American Society for Industrial Security indicates that most security incidents are the result of abuse by insiders. Unfortunately, in today's distributed computing environment it is quite possible for authorized users to do unauthorized things.

ITA monitors all UNIX, NetWare, and Windows NT servers in the network for abuse and unauthorized activity. If abuse is detected, ITA can take automated actions including alerting the security administrator through the ITA console or by electronic mail or pager. ITA can take additional actions such as disable the user's account, stop a program from running, block access to a system, or a wide range of other operations.

"OmniGuard/ITA's intrusion detection capability enables users to watch for real-time patterns of abuse across their entire enterprise via a powerful, rule-based engine that analyzes a wide variety of data streams in each operating system as well as application audit trails," noted Robert Parker, product manager for Intruder Alert.

"ITA is designed to recognize internal or external threats to your network based on attack signatures known as `policies.' These policies can be constructed to monitor not only external attacks and probes, but can also be configured to watch for unauthorized activity patterns, which are a bigger threat to a network."

OmniGuard/ITA version 2.3 is scheduled for general commercial availability on Nov. 15, 1996, and is available directly from AXENT Technologies or its authorized agents. Windows NT pricing has been set at $995 for agents and $1995 for managers.

AXENT Technologies is the leading provider of enterprise-wide information security solutions for client/server computing environments. The OmniGuard suite of products enables organizations to centrally manage information security.

In addition, OmniGuard provides enhanced data confidentiality, access control, user administration, and intrusion detection for UNIX, Windows NT, Windows 95, NetWare, and mid-range systems.

Headquartered in Rockville, AXENT's broad line of security offerings is used by Fortune 1000 and governments worldwide to effectively secure and protect information systems in heterogeneous computing environments. Contact AXENT via email at [e-mail] or visit AXENT's World Wide Web site at http://www.axent.com. -0- All trademarks, service marks, and company names are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: AXENT Technologies Inc., Rockville

Jennifer Whipp, 301/670-3653, [e-mail]