GRC Roll-up: IBM Upgrades Data Monitoring Software, McAfee Warns About Watching Dirty Movies

By David Roe (@druadh20) Sep 15, 2010

This week there has been a lot of talk about security. IBM is concerned about data security, HP acquisition of ArcSight adds network security and McAfee is concerned about free content and security. For compliance, Vertify released its new PIM compliance software, while Protiviti releases portal for multilingual governance.

IBM Upgrades Data Security Monitoring

Data breaches and security are on the tip of everyone’s tongue this week. IBM’s (news, site) contribution in this respect is the announcement that it has just upgraded its InfoSphere Guardium software, which automatically monitors structured data and application usage across the enterprise and immediately alerts management to unusual activity.

The new release — InfoSphere Guardium 8 — allows organizations to simplify security and compliance regulations with a single set of automated and centralized controls for a broader range of enterprise databases and applications.

And while many similar kinds of software try to throw the widest blanket possible in order to catch as many different threats as they can, InfoSphere Guardium has very specific targets for very specific kinds of monitoring. These include:

Fraud Protection for SAP Systems: The new release of InfoSphere Guardium provides more detailed information about SAP users, making it easier for businesses to detect fraudulent activities without making any changes to their databases or applications.
Protection of SharePoint files: Provides constant monitoring of SharePoint repositories with continuous real-time monitoring controls making it easier to detect unauthorized access to repositories.
Support for the Mainframe: Offers enhanced database activity monitoring capabilities for IBM DB2 databases running on System z, allowing businesses to protect critical information from unauthorized access by administrators.

Additionally, businesses can now perform a series of automated tests to assess security vulnerabilities such as weak permissions that could leave the organization open to data loss or failed compliance audits.

There’s a lot more too. IBM says that current estimates put the cost of data breaches at between US$ 100 and US$ 200 per compromised record. That’s potentially a lot of money wasted for no reason at all. If you want to find out more have a look at IBM’s security website.

HP to Buy Network Security with ArcSight

Speaking of security, HP (news, site) has also been looking at that this week. With the 3Par deal only just inked, seems like HP-minus-Mark Hurd can’t keep its cheque book in its pants and is now waving it in the direction of network security provider ArcSight offering US$ 1.5 billion for the company.

Seems it was all a little bit too rich for ArcSight to say no and according to reports today, it’s all but a done deal.

Putting the collective energies of HP and ArcSight together will improve security, reduce risk and facilitate compliance at a lower cost for customers, and of course it will also add some extra va-va-voom to HP’s existing security portfolio.