Altiris Delivers Automated Audits of Payment Card Industry Security Standards; Altiris SecurityExpressions Checks Against All Applicable PCI Security Standards.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Altiris Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRS), a pioneer of IT lifecycle management solutions that reduce the total cost of owning IT resources and strengthen the security of critical IT systems, today announced audit-ready support of data security standards set forth by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to help protect credit card data. Altiris(R) SecurityExpressions(TM) now provides companies that process, transmit or store credit card data with an automated, policy-based solution to help ensure compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard.

The PCI Data Security Standards are system and network security and business practice guidelines developed by the leading credit card companies to establish a minimum security standard for cardholders' account and transaction information. The standards require compliance via on-site reviews, security self-assessments and security scans.

The standards are comprised of 12 security requirements that must be met on an ongoing basis. SecurityExpressions automates all applicable system-level vulnerability scans required by the PCI data security standards by auditing:

--Security systems and processes

--Employee access to system and network resources containing cardholder data

--Vulnerable default system passwords

--Anti-virus software status

--Unique user IDs and access data

--Firewall configurations

--The development and maintenance of secure systems and applications

PCI standards also include recommended best practices and processes such as the protection of stored data, encryption of sensitive data for transmission, restricting physical and network data access and maintaining an ongoing security policy.

According to Gartner research, "Protecting customer data is much less expensive than dealing with a security breach in which records are exposed and potentially misused. The Payment Card Industry compliance requirements provide enterprises with good justification to increase data protection."*

Steve Morton, Altiris VP of product management and marketing, said, "The need for compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards is clear, but merchants, even the most technically adept and process-focused organizations, often lack the resources or expertise to comply. In addition, PCI standards should be viewed as just a starting point and should be supplemented with other more rigorous security policies. Altiris SecurityExpressions helps companies establish compliance and then easily check for ongoing compliance with PCI standards as well as more comprehensive security policies."

Altiris SecurityExpressions is unique in providing repeatable vulnerability audit and compliance for Windows, Linux and UNIX systems. SecurityExpressions enables real-time network audits, allowing an audit of all systems instead of fallible, manual samples.

SecurityExpressions gives organizations more control over system compliance as measured against security policies such as the PCI Data Security Standard, SOX, HIPAA, industry and vendor guidelines and other best practices. Additionally, SecurityExpressions provides security managers with ongoing audit logs, compliance benchmarking, and trending analysis to deliver evidence of due diligence in monitoring security and compliance status.

About Altiris

Altiris Inc. is a pioneer of IT lifecycle management software that allows IT organizations to easily manage, secure and service desktops, notebooks, thin clients, handhelds, industry-standard servers, and heterogeneous software including Windows, Linux and UNIX. Altiris automates and simplifies IT projects throughout the life of an asset to reduce the cost and complexity of management. Altiris client and mobile, server, security and IT asset management solutions natively integrate via a common Web-based console and repository. For more information, visit www.altiris.com.

Altiris is a registered trademark of Altiris Inc. in the United States and in other countries. SecurityExpressions is a trademark of Pedestal Software Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Altiris Inc. The other company names or products mentioned are or may be trademarks of their respective owners.

* Gartner Inc., "Data Protection Is Less Costly Than Data Breaches," John Pescatore and Avivah Litan, Sept. 16, 2005.