Friday, October 31, 2008

Wake-On-WAN and LDMS 8.7

We've had a few reports that the WoL executable is not being launched when Wake-On-WAN is installed on some LANDesk 8.7 systems. We are investigating and hope to have a fix shortly. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

.Net 3.5 on LANDesk Core

We've had a few questions from people who are not keen to install .Net 3.5 on their LANDesk Core Server. The important thing to note about this is that .Net 3.5 still configures version 2.0 for the ASP.Net components so LANDesk just isn't affected and LANDesk cores work without issue.

If LANDesk support tell you 3.5 isn't supported, remember this just means it has not gone through their official testing, not that it causes issues. If they can point to specific issues caused by the presence of 3.5 (which they should be able to if they exist since they are the central repository of all issues) then please tell us.

Of the 200+ people that have downloaded our products we have not had a single report of a .Net3.5 related issues.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

LANDesk® Security Suite to Include HIPS; NAC Will be Offered as an Add-On

LANDesk have announced that effective November 1, 2008, LANDesk® Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) will be included with LANDesk® Security Suite (LDSS). Also effective November 1, 2008, LANDesk® Network Access Control (NAC) will no longer be included in LDSS for new customers but will be sold as an add-on to LDSS.

LANDesk® Host Intrusion Prevention System

The inclusion of HIPS in LDSS will add a significant layer of protection to LDSS. "HIPS is a critical layer to our LANDesk Security Suite," says Devin Anderson, Business Line Manager for LANDesk security products. "It helps LANDesk customers protect themselves from targeted attacks and zero day threats by providing key technologies such as buffer-overflow protection, whitelisting, and application control."

HIPS gives customers more ability to prevent programs and applications from engaging in malicious behaviors, such as modifying certain registry keys, directories, files, and the system startup group. Using buffer-overflow protection, file certification and file protection rules, as well as other techniques, users' machines are protected.

HIPS helps LDSS customers bridge the "Patch Gap" - the period of time between when a vulnerability is announced, exploited, and when a patch is finally available. By protecting against the zero-day threats, HIPS can better ensure machines are safe even before patches are available.

For those security administrators who are ready to go to the next level and deploy whitelisting, HIPS can optionally be configured for whitelisting protection. With security model devices, whitelists can be easily maintained and updated, without the extensive management efforts that have plagued whitelisting solutions for years.

All customers with a current support and maintenance contract and licensed to use LDSS version 8.8 and newer will receive HIPS at no additional charge.

LANDesk Network Access Control

LANDesk® Network Access Control (formerly known as LANDesk® Trusted Access) will be removed from LDSS and available separately as an add-on to LDSS. All customers who purchase LANDesk® Security Suite before November 1, 2008 will maintain rights to use NAC. This change will only affect new customers after November 1, 2008