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GCN Home > 12/10/07 issue

Products that rocked the boat

GCN Lab Reviews: The best of 2007 each sailed their own course

By John Breeden II and Greg Crowe

THE GCN LAB reviewed hundreds of products this year, of which fewer than 40 received a Reviewer’s Choice seal, our highest measure of excellence. Of those, a few stood out as being something really special, the best of the best in 2007. These products blazed new trails, ventured into areas where nobody else dared to go or simply changed everything. The following are the Lab’s top six products of 2007.

IronKey 4G Secure Flash drive

THIS PROBABLY is the only key drive an employee of the federal government should use. Its security features make it a fingertip fortress that goes so far as to destroy itself Mission Impossible-style after too many wrong guesses at the password.

The IronKey encrypts all its files using an embedded Cryptochip with a military-grade Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm.

Because this is hardware-based encryption, it works much faster than the software-based engines we have seen on other secure drives, yet the key drive needs no installation. If you don’t have administrator access, you can still use the IronKey.

As a bonus, the inexpensive $149 4G drive also protects your Web surfing with its hardened version of Firefox.

You can use it along with a secure server managed by IronKey — use is included in the price — to hide your identity online and even change the paths your data takes over the Internet.

The rugged and submersible IronKey is a James Bond-worthy device at a budget price, which earns it a top spot for 2007.(Full review)

Best Product of 2007: Fidelis XPS 100 Direct

ADMINISTRATORS PAY A LOT of attention to securing networks from the outside, but internal security is almost always overlooked — sometimes with disastrous, headline-grabbing results. The Fidelis XPS 100 Direct is a 1U appliance that makes sure secret and sensitive information inside your agency stays there.

The XPS 100 protects your network without disrupting services by looking at the data being sent and the type of activity being conducted rather than checking each port the way a standard firewall does. Once in place, you can set up sophisticated pattern-recognition rules to protect your data and specify what action the sensor should take when it finds something suspicious: alert only, alert and prevent, or quarantine. You can then group similar rules into a policy and assign policies to the appropriate sensor.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, IT Security, Mobile & Wireless, Storage Management, Hardware, Software Applications



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