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Forescout CounterACT Helps Enterprises Reduce Operational Costs

ADO GL Secures Network, Trims IT Costs with CounterACT

Cupertino, Calif. – April 1, 2009 – Forescout Technologies, the market leader in network access control (NAC) for large government and global enterprise deployments, today announced that CounterACT is helping customers such as ADO GL, a leading bus line and charter transportation enterprise serving greater Mexico, secure their network and reduce operational costs. Despite the economic downturn, security requirements continue to rise. According to a recent study from The Ponemon Institute, in 2008, the average total cost of a data breach was $6.65 million, up from $6.35 million last year and $4.54 in 2005. As a result, enterprises are under great pressure to protect their IT infrastructure while trimming unnecessary expenses.

“We deployed Forescout CounterACT in 15 locations nationwide to help manage visitor network access, and immediately discovered the hidden value of NAC," said Verne Lizano Povedano, CIO at ADO GL. “In today’s economy, it offers us a remarkable tool for viewing, controlling and remediating devices connecting to our network. It requires minimal maintenance… freeing IT resources and saving us several man hours per month in operational costs. Also, we’ve found that CounterACT can help us pinpoint, consolidate and eliminate idle or unnecessary energy-consuming appliances in the data-center … enabling cost-savings and greener (more power efficient) IT."

Forescout CounterACT enables IT departments to protect themselves against internal and external threats with minimal hardware investment and maximum threat protection. It is infrastructure agnostic, which eliminates the need to rip-and-replace existing switches or infrastructure to deploy network access control. Once installed, a single multi-purpose CounterACT appliance can manage up to 4,000 devices and offer complete enterprise-grade asset visibility, access control, malicious threat prevention, and centralized compliance management.

CounterACT has the ability to see every IP device connected to the network, control all connections down to the switch port, and provide complex policies to enable and enforce security processes and standards. Access control is performed without the need to first deploy 802.1x, and enforcements can include actions such as peer-to-peer shutdown, post-connection monitoring for threat prevention, and detection/blocking of banned devices (such as USBs).

“In today’s business climate, enterprises such as ADO are demanding non-disruptive NAC solutions that deliver complete protection and access control at a reduced cost of deployment," said Gord Boyce, President of Forescout. “CounterACT continues to brings real value to our enterprise customers. CounterACT goes a step further, helping IT departments to reduce operational costs by offering a multi-purpose NAC solution that consolidates many functions into one appliance, streamlines deployment, and helps reveal and eliminate costly idling devices that are a drain on IT resources."

Corporations benefit from an ‘all around’ appliance that not only protects the networks but has an immediate impact on the reduction of costs. Cost-saving features include:

  • Demand on IT personnel – CounterACT automates visibility, access control, compliance and remediation and requires minimal maintenance, freeing up IT staff and reducing the costs in technical support and forensics associated with “recovery" from a security breach.
  • Data-center management – CounterACT is a single multi-purpose appliance managing up to 4000 devices, that saves the need of storing multiple, energy-consuming appliances in the data-center and pinpoints idling powerhogs that needlessly drain IT resource.
  • Guest Access Control – CounterACT automates the process for identifying and controlling guests on the network.
  • Upgrade Management – CounterACT automates OS/AV updates while reducing cost and time required to answer end user trouble tickets and requests.
  • Leverage existing IT infrastructure – CounterACT augments existing tools like directories, authentication servers, AV, FW, SMS, Syslog, and more.

The latest CounterACT innovations will be demonstrated in Forescout Booth #423 at the upcoming RSA Conference 2009, April 20-24, Moscone Center/San Francisco.

About Forescout Technologies, Inc.

Forescout is the leading provider of access control and compliance solutions. With top-tier customers from every vertical, Forescout has perfected the art of providing strong access control without disrupting network operations or needlessly punishing end users. Forescout’s flagship product, CounterACT, protects over 500 of the world’s most secure enterprises and military installations with global deployments spanning 37 countries. The CounterACT family of products provides a path to complete security policy enforcement and is fast and easy for administrators to deploy, manage and maintain. For more about the company and its products, visit www.forescout.com.