Cisco Rolls Out Network Protection Appliance

Cisco has announced an out-of-band appliance for its Clean Access network registration and network admission control solution providing vulnerability assessment and authentication integration.

The Cisco Clean Access Out-of-Band appliance is designed to automatically detect, isolate, and repair infected or vulnerable devices that attempt to log into the network. The device recognizes users and devices as they gain network access and determines whether they are compliant with security policies. If they are not, the appliance can isolate or repair noncompliant machines under the direction of the network administrator.

The appliance integrates with a switching infrastructure and implements Network Admission Control (NAC). A Cisco-sponsored initiative, NAC promises to use the network infrastructure to minimize the damage caused by viruses and worms by enforcing security compliance by all devices seeking to access network resourtces.

"With the addition of Cisco Clean Access Out-of-Band, organizations can take advantage of their high-speed switched network infrastructures to deploy network admission control capabilities and maximize the reach of the security policy enforcement," Cisco director of engineering in the Security Technology Group Arvin Babu, said in a statement. "Customers now have a high-performance, turnkey solution that provides network access authentication, posture assessment, and remediation combined with high performance."