HP Beefs Up Enterprise Security Portfolio

Hewlett-Packard has announced a number of new additions to its security portfolio to help enterprises safeguard their data centres, cloud environments, and mobile business.

The new offerings include data centre defences that can permit enterprises to evaluate their security practices and dramatically improve them against attacks, as well as a new printing service that allows health care companies to better protect documents when they are being printed, said Rebecca Lawson, director of worldwide security initiatives for HP.

New Offerings

Among the key new products are the following:

• HP Data Center Protection Services, made up of three data centre offerings that look at different parts of the security spectrum, including current security needs and controls as well as future needs and controls that will be required. The three parts – HP DC Protection Optimization Service, HP DC GRC Readiness Service and the HP DC Protection Management Service – work together to help enterprises evaluate, map out and better protect their data centres against future intrusions, said Lawson.
• HP ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager 6.0c is a major new update to an existing product that provides powerful, scalable security monitoring and compliance as well as having the capability to quickly identify and block cyber-threats, she said. It identifies security threats across an organisation’s infrastructure so they can be prioritised and resolved. “It looks for anomalies, things that are occurring that otherwise wouldn’t be detected,” Lawson said.
• HP Access Control (HP AC) Printing Solutions, designed to enhance privacy requirements needed by the health care industry, brings greater security for printed documents by requiring a document to be retrieved at a printer only after a user types in a brief identifying code to ensure it is being picked up by the appropriate person. “People often don’t think of the information they send to printers,” Lawson said. “They get printing sent out and then people forget to pick them up at the printer and they can get into the wrong hands. Printing is important because we are interested in protecting the entire data lifecycle.”
• HP Imaging and Printing Security Assessment reviews the print environment from a security and compliance perspective, minimising the risks of unattended documents, sensitive data processing from a computer to a printer, and confidential information on device hard drives.

Security Challenges

The new security services are being introduced based on customer needs as enterprises deepen their forays into cloud computing, mobility and big data efforts, according to HP.

“Cyber-security threats are growing exponentially, and without a proactive information risk management strategy, enterprise growth, innovation and efficiencies are hindered,” George Kadifa, HP’s executive vice president of software, said in a statement.

HP also unveiled a new HP Security for Public Sector offering to assist budget-pressured local and state governments that also have to deal with intense data security needs, according to HP. One new feature aimed at serving public sector clients is HP Assured Identity, which offers simplified identity, credential and access management, enabling tighter controls against insider threats, robust identity proofing and reduced complexity when organisations are sharing information and collaborating.

Also new is the HP TippingPoint NX Platform Next Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS) solution, which offers protection across network devices, virtual machines, operating systems and business-critical applications by adding significant capacity for deep-packet traffic inspection, according to HP.

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