SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif., Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Catbird, the pioneer in comprehensive security and compliance for virtual, cloud and physical networks, today announced the next generation of its award-winning vSecurity®. vSecurity 5.0 will empower IT managers with the control and assurance they need to capitalize on the benefits and cost-savings of virtualized and cloud computing. Security and compliance are the principal objections affecting virtual and cloud rollouts.

Legacy security monitoring and compliance tools cannot reliably protect increasingly complex and dynamic IT environments created by virtualization. Catbird has pioneered a new class of automated security that is context-aware and adaptive to the fluid and mobile nature of virtualized data centers. vSecurity 5.0 integrates directly with the hypervisor to provide comprehensive and automated control, visibility and efficiency. Its vCompliance® engine monitors and enforces virtualized data center compliance with PCI, FISMA, NIST, HIPAA and other standards for regulated industries looking to take advantage of virtualized infrastructure for their mission-critical computing.

"Virtualization has revolutionized all aspects of data center computing, including security. With Catbird's vSecurity 5.0, our customers benefit from the economic and technical advantages of virtualization," said Edmundo Costa, CEO of Catbird. "From the U.S. Department of Defense to some of the largest credit card processors in North America, vSecurity automates the security and compliance process, enabling broader and deeper use of virtualization and cloud computing. Catbird customers can virtualize more assets, virtualize more quickly and improve virtualization ROI."

"Catbird vSecurity 5.0 gives us control over our entire virtual infrastructure and network, which is crucial to the security management of the whole county," said Irvin Metaj, Network Engineer of Indiana's Madison County Government Center, Information Technology Systems. "We manage IT for all branches of government: law enforcement, the courts, the revenue divisions and more. With Catbird, we know which departments are trying to access which network and systems, can manage who can communicate with whom and now patrol unauthorized connections. Catbird really raised our game by exposing us to best practices for virtualization security."

Catbird's award-winning next-generation approach weaves together access control, intrusion detection, secure auditing and automated protection for virtual machines, virtual networks, hypervisor management and associated physical assets. With the release of vSecurity 5.0, Catbird incorporates features such as:

Event Viewer -Orchestrates and displays data culled from a range of controls, including nprobe, firewall, NAC, IDS/IPS and other sources, to paint a detailed picture of what each control is detecting in real-time. A key tool of IT security and operations people alike, the event viewer provides detailed analysis of the security posture of each asset, as well as the inter-relationships between assets, to determine risks and vulnerabilities.

Compliance Radar Graph - A graphical gauge of a data center's current compliance status against a particular standard that is automatically updated in real time, the compliance radar graph automates the validation of compliance while instantly alerting organizations to noncompliance.

Automated Asset Inventory -Automatic, accurate inventories of the IT environment to populate a comprehensive, reliable asset catalog for security monitoring and enforcement.

Network Flow Mapping - Network flows illustrate the communication paths between objects and groups of objects, providing a comprehensive view of protocols, connections, access lists, and more. Because the netflow mapping is integrated with Catbird's automated inventory, organizations can more effectively regulate access controls and mitigate risks from suspicious communication.

Policy Automation - Organizations can set policies and automatically administer and enforce those policies via vSecurity TrustZones(TM), logical groupings of assets that share a pre-defined, common set of policy and compliance rules. In this way, IT teams can be assured of the compliance of their own virtualized data centers against 3rd party standards or their own corporate governance.

Support for syslog CEF, the Common Event Format, an open log management standard enabling Catbird vSecurity data to be collected and aggregated for analysis by the leading enterprise management systems, including ArcSight, Splunk, and RSA enVision.

Catbird's vSecurity 5.0 is built on industry standard, network-based, security technologies for the most comprehensive set of services protecting virtual, cloud and physical networks. Catbird's controls include IPS/IDS, Network Access Control, Vulnerability Monitoring, Compliance Enforcement, Policy Management, Configuration Management and Access Control in a single solution. vSecurity 5.0 includes vCompliance® for automated, real-time compliance monitoring and enforcement with integrated workflow and reporting; VMshield(TM) for monitoring and enforcing policies and rules on virtual machines to block malicious network activity directed at the specific asset from any source; TrustZones® for ensuring the enforcement and monitoring of security policies associated with a particular virtual machine or network; and Hypervisor Shield(TM) for monitoring and controlling access, detecting malicious network activity and validating configurations of the hypervisor management network.

Catbird is the industry leader in comprehensive security and compliance for virtualized, cloud and physical environments, and a winner of four Best of Show Finalist Awards at VMworld 2010, 2009 and 2008. Via Catbird vSecurity and the "Catbird" virtual appliance, Catbird is the only company delivering best-practice security for Hypervisor, Guest VMs and Policy/Regulatory Security Compliance. As companies migrate mainstream servers and desktops to virtual environments, uncertainty over security and compliance can impact deployment plans. Catbird's protection eliminates these worries and keeps virtualization plans on track. Founded in 2000 by Internet pioneer Ron Lachman, the company's innovative technology protects tens of thousands of customer systems and networks who rely on Catbird and its partners to protect their valuable IT assets from external and internal threats. The private company is based in Silicon Valley.

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