News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Symantec Releases Incident Manager 2.0
A Key Component of the Symantec Security Management System,
Symantec Incident Manager Provides Automatic, Real-Time Correlation
for Superior Protection
Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today announced the release of Symantec Incident
Manager 2.0. Symantec Incident Manager uses automated correlation to identify and prioritise security issues and then
coordinates resolution of those issues, allowing enterprises to proactively secure their network against known threats
and respond to new attacks in real time.
“With today’s organisations becoming more global, connected and dynamic in nature, the practice of security management
has never been more complex,” says Richard Batchelar, Country Manager for Symantec New Zealand. “Symantec Incident
Manager helps companies take real steps to manage information security risks.”
Enterprise security management can be complicated, often delivered through the combination of commercial products from
different vendors that lack integration and interoperability. These products generate a tremendous amount of data- in
some cases, millions of messages or “events” each month. Most events are the result of normal activity. However,
messages reporting real malicious activity often get lost in all of the data.
Taken individually, it can be difficult to determine if an event requires action. Single events don’t have enough
information, so grouping related events together into incidents helps administrators understand the nature and scope of
an attack or unwanted activity. An incident is a set of events or conditions that requires a response and closure in
order to restore an appropriate risk profile. The challenge is sorting through the millions of events to find incidents
in time to take action.
Symantec Incident Manager correlates security events from disparate security products and across protection
technologies, including antivirus, firewall and intrusion detection to identify incidents in real time, and coordinates
response actions throughout the entire incident lifecycle.
In addition to automatic, real-time correlation, Symantec Incident Manager also offers business impact analysis using a
sophisticated risk analysis engine that determines the impact of each incident on a customer’s business in terms of
confidentiality, integrity and availability. Customers can tailor the system with specific risk profiles for each part
of their business to ensure the business impact analysis is uniquely relevant to their individual needs. The risk
analysis engine also determines which incidents are urgent and presents a prioritised, actionable list. Incident
priority is determined and updated in real time to reflect the most current state of an incident, allowing staff to
focus resources on resolving the most critical incidents first.
Symantec Incident Manager helps administrators understand important characteristics of each incident by displaying links
between event signatures and safeguards. It also provides dynamic guidance, assessing the nature of each incident and
providing specific instructions that guide the administrator through the resolution process. Guidance is based on the
SANS incident handling best-practices framework.
Symantec Incident Manager includes expert security content, produced by Symantec Security Response, which provides
correlation rules and conclusions, and action recommendations to guide staff as they identify and resolve incidents.
Finally, Symantec Incident Manager integrates with the new Symantec Vulnerability Assessment 1.0 to correlate attacks to
vulnerabilities, reducing false positives since administrators can readily focus on the systems that are most vulnerable
to each attack.
The Symantec Security Management System
Symantec Incident Manager is a key component of the Symantec Security Management System, which is comprised of multiple
components that can be purchased and deployed separately, but also integrate with one another to provide the right set
of security management applications unique to individual business objectives. Other key components of the Symantec
Security Management System are Symantec Event Managers and Symantec Enterprise Security Manager (ESM).
Symantec Event Managers
Symantec Event Managers provide enterprise customers with logging, alerting and reporting for a specific area of
protection, such as antivirus, firewall and intrusion detection. Symantec Event Manager for Anti-Virus, Symantec Event
Manager for Firewall and Symantec Event Manager for Intrusion Detection (IDS) consolidate data from Symantec’s
protection solutions to provide the customer with a complete view of virus, firewall and IDS events. Using Symantec
Event Collectors, customers can also collect data from third-party vendor security products. The following Symantec
Event Collectors are currently available: Symantec Event Collector for Network Associates ePO and VirusScan, Symantec
Event Collector for Trend Micro Gateway and Groupware, Symantec Event Collector for Check Point VPN-1/Firewall-1, and
Symantec Event Collector for ISS RealSecure.
Symantec is also working with third-party vendors to create collectors through the Symantec Technology Partner Program,
which was formally announced in March 2003. Top Layer Networks and VIGILANTe are among the early adopters of Symantec’s
integration technologies. Further information on joining the Technology Partner Program or current certified partners
can be found at http://www.symantec.com/partners/technologypartners/index.html.
Symantec ESM
Symantec ESM, an industry-leading security policy compliance solution, can be integrated with Symantec Incident Manager
to track the resolution of identified policy non-compliance incidents to closure, giving enterprise customers a more
comprehensive approach to security management. As a stand-alone security application, Symantec ESM enables enterprises
to create customized security policies and manage policy compliance in mission critical business applications and
servers across a heterogeneous enterprise from a single location.
Availability
Symantec Incident Manager is available through select Symantec value-added systems integrators and certified partners.
The other components of the Symantec Security Management System are currently available through Symantec’s worldwide
network of value-added authorised resellers, distributors and systems integrators. Organisations can be connected with
Symantec resellers or distributors in their areas by visiting the Symantec Solution Provider locator at
http://www.symantec.com/partners/partners_frames.html.
Symantec Consulting Services
Symantec Consulting Services provides assistance with planning, installing and deploying Symantec Incident Manager 2.0.
For more information about Symantec Consulting Services, please visit
http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/SecurityServices/content.cfm?ArticleID=680=0
About Symantec
Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security
software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of
client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability
management, intrusion detection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, remote management technologies and security
services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec’s Norton brand of consumer security products is
a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide
operations in 38 countries. For more information, please visit www.symantec.com.