Sygate Joins Nortel Contivity Associates Program

February 28, 2002 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Sygate Technologies Inc. (sygate.com), a leading provider of enterprise security policy enforcement solutions, announced this week that it has joined the Nortel Networks Contivity Associates Program in an effort to deliver comprehensive enterprise security to its customers.

The Contivity Associates Program is a solutions marketing program that provides guidance and assurance to Nortel Networks customers as they implement Contivity-based VPN solutions. Sygate says its membership in the program will allow enterprises, service providers and systems integrators with access to a solution that combines the security benefits of VPNs with endpoint protection from hackers and other threats.

The Sygate Secure Enterprise (SSE) solution is designed to ensure that endpoints connecting via the VPN meet established enterprise security policies before VPN access is granted. Contivity, a market-leading VPN appliance for remote access, business partner extranet and branch-to-branch VPN, ensures the secure transmission of corporate information over public and private IP networks. The SSE solution compliments the abilities of Contivity by enforcing safe behavior on all remote systems.

“The Sygate Secure Enterprise solution has proven its value to a significant number of global enterprises and Nortel Networks customers. Through our integration part of the Contivity Associates Program, we are now able to provide enterprise customers with an end-to-end remote access and wireless solution that, incorporates both Nortel Networks and Sygate’s products and is designed to assure the seamless interoperability our customers are looking for,” said John DeSantis, president of Sygate Technologies. “By incorporating the ability to define and enforce the security integrity of connecting hosts, Nortel Networks and Sygate are ultimately extending the same level of trust to remote and mobile users as can be achieved with users inside of the traditional network structure.”

The SSE product, in conjunction with Contivity, ensures security through three main features. It defines the integrity of connecting systems by creating a profile of security applications, data and policies necessary for secure communications. Sygate Security Agents deployed on connecting systems check the integrity of each host against that profile when they connect through VPN or wireless LAN entry points. SSE then allows or denies access based on host integrity.

Sygate says the SSE, based on its newly announced advanced security architecture, uses both a security agent running on each client, and one or more management servers either located centrally or distributed across the enterprise. The architecture, says Sygate, is the first to enable dynamic security policies to be tied to individual users, following them as they change location or method of connection.