Guest Networking

ForeScout CounterACT can allow guests to use your network for Internet access -- without compromising your internal network security. Network access can totally automated, thus relieving your IT staff from any burden.

Challenges of Guest Networking

When guests or contractors come to work at your location, they bring their own computers with them. To remain productive, they need to access the Internet. In addition, contractors may need to access certain internal portions of your network. For example, auditors need access to the financial records and accounting systems.

If you leave network ports open in conference rooms and work cubes, guests may access your network by simply plugging into the wall. However, this is dangerous for two reasons: 1) The guest's device might have malware on it. 2) The guest might try to access sensitive data on your network.

One way to solve the problem is to keep your network ports closed by default. But this places a large burden on your IT staff who then need to manually open the ports and create temporary accounts for each guest.

Another solution is to purchase dedicated external Internet connections for use by guests. But this solution is expensive and not very flexible.

ForeScout CounterACT solves all of these problems.

Guest Networking with ForeScout CounterACT

ForeScout CounterACT can automatically allow guests and contractors to access your network without introducing risks to your internal network:

Enable Automatic Control
• ForeScout CounterACT lets you automatically control where different types of people can go on your network - based on who they are or the passcodes that they enter.
• No manual intervention is required by your IT staff - which means that your guests can be up and running in no time.
• Flexible registration methods allow you to tailor the system to fit your needs.

Set Appropriate Access Levels
• Depending on the policies that you establish, ForeScout CounterACT will give different levels of network access to each type of user -- guests, contractors, and employees of various stripes. It couldn't be simpler.
• The most common configuration is simply to put guests onto an isolated VLAN, allowing the guest to access the Internet but nothing else on your network.
• ForeScout CounterACT can also be configured to ask each guest to provide their login credentials when they first connect to your network allowing CounterACT to perform a deep security inspection of the guest's computer prior to joining your network.

Eliminate cost of dedicated Internet connections
• If you have been purchasing expensive, dedicated lines for guest Internet access, ForeScout CounterACT enables you to decommission these lines and save money.

Contact us for more information on how ForeScout's CounterACT solutions can help you.