Secure Computing product review from October 1996

Features	.	.	.	.	.
Easy of Use (novice)	.	.	.	.	.
Easy of Use (professional)	.	.	.	.	.
Support	.	.	.	.	.
Perfomance	.	.	.	.	.
Value for Money	.	.	.	.	.
Overall					....
Comment: Easy of use, though its flexibility can be a bit confusing to those who have not initially planned the configuration they ultimately desire. A great deal of thought has gone into providing a thorough and efficient system that may provide real security for those who will take the care to employ its features.

Generally speaking network security services can be classified into the following five categorites:

1. Access control procedures ensure that only authorised persons can gain access to protected resources on a networked computer system
2. Confidentiality services protect sensitive data from unauthorised disclosure, either deliberate or accidental.
3. Data integrity services are designed to thwart unauthorised tampering with or corruption of senstitive data
4. Authentication services are desgned to identify with near 100 per cent certainty the user of a protected resource
5. Nonrepudiation services ensure that a network transaction that actually took place cannot later be denied by any participating party

Each of these security services relies on some form of encryption, and all these services are provided by AEC's IronWall security product. IronWall thus represents a comprehensive security solution for your data security needs.

Of special interest are the following features:

• a boot protection facility ensuring that only authorised users can access data held on either a stand-alone or terminal PC.
• encryption facilities which can encrypt selected files, floppy diskettes, and entire hard discs.
• a locking facility for selected files ensuring that data cannot be altered or tampered with by unuathorised users.
• a comprehensive logging system, enabling a supervisor to identify who did what on the computer system
• transparent diskette encryption enables users to work as normal on approved diskettes, but as soon as an employee removes a diskette from the building it is impossible for him or her to read the data. In addition use of this facililty means that employees cannot import unauthorised data, such as computer games
• effective protection against computer viruses, since only authorised persons can import and install new software. Proper use of this feature means that there will be no need to use anti-viral software at all.

In short IronWall contains all the features necessary for comprehensive security without making employees feel that 'big brother' is watching them. Put simply, IronWall makes full use of preventing access to data rather than continually monitoring who is accessing what data.

Technical summary of IronWall

• enables symmetric encryption using DES, triple DES, IDEA, and CIFER algorithms
• enables a maximum of up to 7 individual accounts to be held by supervisors and users
• enables access by groups of users
• uses a sophisticated password login procedure for both individual and group users
• can employ a hardware solution for registering user names and passwords by employing Dallas buttons
• enables password and file protection to be time limited, i.e. subject to expiry dates
• encrypts audit log files
• protects files against unauthorised tampering and modifications
• offers highly effective anti-virus protection without the necessity of investing in anti-viral software
• extremly user-friendly and easy to configure
• offers a transparent file encryption facility
• can hide directories
• can render directories as 'read only'
• offers floppy encryption
• locks communication ports

IronWall is currently available for the following operating systems:
DOS, Windows 3.11, Windows 95.

IronWall for Windows NT will be avaiable in Q2/97.