Eracent Announces Virus Discovery and Reporting System - Firm Offers Free Consultation to Government Agencies and Utilities

Eracent, Inc. announced today the availability of its Virus Discovery and Reporting System. Designed to work with Eracents EnterpriseAM Technology, The Virus Discovery and Reporting System will perform a constant scan of all devices in an enterprise-wide network, including servers, and provide detailed reports on infected systems and those systems that are vulnerable to infection. The firm also announced that it is offering a free virus security consultation to any governemental agency, utility or telecommunications provider.

Glen Gardner, NJ (PRWEB) August, 2003 -- Eracent, Inc., which specializes in providing information technology asset management (ITAM) software to Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies, announced today the availability of its Virus Discovery and Reporting System. Designed to work with Eracents EnterpriseAMÔ Technology, The Virus Discovery and Reporting System will perform a constant scan of all devices in an enterprise-wide network, including servers, and provide near real-time reports of the location of infected systems as well as identification of those systems that are vulnerable to infection.

Speaking about the SoBig.F cyber-terrorist attack, Walt Szablowski, Eracents CEO, said: Recent virus attacks have highlighted the importance of staying current with security updates and patches. But how many IT managers have a detailed, comprehensive picture of their network's software and hardware vulnerabilities? How can they track scores of combinations of OS, e-mail clients, and other applications? Moreover, even with the comprehensive firewall and anti-virus tools available, how can any CIO be sure that there are not systems within the enterprise that are exposed to attack or that are harboring dangerous worms, Trojan Horses or time delay viruses? Our objective at Eracent is to use our ability to identify unprotected systems and to locate and report the existence of destructive code anywhere within an enterprise."

Eracent has developed a software audit file specifically designed to identify and pinpoint infected systems. Supplementing the functionality of widely used anti-virus programs such as MacAfee Virus Scan and Norton Utilities, Eracents Virus Discovery and Reporting System constantly monitors each computer on an enterprise network and compares discovered software with identified virus, file-sharing, worm and/or Trojan Horse files. It also scans for specific configurations, identifying those systems that are not running up-to-date anti-virus applications. The system generates ongoing reports detailing the specific machines which are infected or are unprotected, notifying the appropriate IT staff members. The company can then direct efforts to clean the infected hardware or load the necessary protective software. Said Szablowski, Relying on end-users to keep their virus protection current is only so effective. Eventually a security hole occurs which can endanger the entire network. By scanning the entire network we can help the CIO identify and patch those holes. It is almost as important to discover the unprotected systems as it is to locate the viruses themselves."

Eracents customers have seen benefits from operating an automated, scheduled scans of the software files resident on their networks. One global telecommunications supplier relied on EnterpriseAM to identify the dangerous SQL virus that had invaded many back-end servers. A representative said The only way we were able to locate the code and pinpoint the infected servers was through the use of EnterpriseAM". Eracent has noted that many of its customers have advised the company that they have experienced no loss of data or network functionality as a result of recent cyber-attacks on North America.

In light of the recent computer virus attacks, and the power-outage that crippled much of the Northeast on August 14, Eracent is offering a free network inventory and security consultation to any state of federal governmental agency, or any utility or telecommunications provider, through the end of the year. Says Szablowski We feel we can make a difference in offering this service. As was recently reported in the Boston Globe, along with many other publications, we know there are thousands of machines out there harboring hidden copies of destructive code. Eracent is uniquely positioned to make this offer due to our extensive experience in this area and the precise discovery and reporting technology we have developed." Agencies or companies interested in availing their organizations of this service are encouraged to contact Eracent at info@eracent.com.

About EnterprisAM

EnterpriseAM employs a thin client architecture and is currently available for MS Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS. It can be installed as a service or as a small executable application which gathers data on hardware configuration, installed software, and usage. The data is passed to a SQL DBMS running on a Windows 2000 collection server. There it is checked against audit tables that are updated daily with information on new software releases, their hardware requirements, and the latest viruses and related files. Users can easily add definitions for in-house applications. The result is a near-real-time view of every workstation, network switch, firewall configuration, and application in systems from 10,000 to 400,000 seats. Eracent is now releasing report templates specifically geared to highlighting potential virus and security threats, with user-selectable options that make it easy to define a complex query without writing SQL scripts or applications.

About Eracent

Eracent Inc. is a provider of IT asset management solutions for enterprise level organizations. Serving all industries in both domestic and international markets, Eracents core business strategy has been, and continues to be, to develop IT asset management technologies that provide a rapid return, ease of use and full access to highly accurate IT inventory data needed by IT managers in large organizations. To learn more about Eracent, visit www.eracent.com, or call 1-631-271-3335.