Enterasys Sentinel™ Trusted Access Manager and Trusted Access Gateway

Proactive Prevention of Security Threats

With the breakthrough Enterasys Sentinel Trusted Access Gateway and Trusted Access Manager, enterprises can now deploy a centralized access-control solution that performs authentication, vulnerability assessment and assisted remediation of end systems to proactively prevent security threats from getting on the network.

Enterasys Sentinel enables full user mobility by protecting against unauthorized users, viruses and other security threats on the network through the implementation of agent-less end-system assessment. This solution complements the existing agent-based assessment solution offered by Enterasys, which is ideal for environments where vulnerability assessment software agents can be readily deployed on end systems.

How Enterasys Sentinel Works
Enterasys Sentinel leverages NetSight® Policy Manager to centrally define roles that determine the levels of network resource allocation for end systems, such as “Assessing,” “Quarantine” and “Failsafe” roles. NetSight Policy Manager enables the configuration and enforcing of these roles across the enterprise to Enterasys infrastructure edge devices, which implement highly granular, port-level traffic classification capabilities to control end-system access to network services.

When a user or device first attempts to connect to the network, credentials are passed to an authentication (RADIUS) server by the Trusted Access Gateway. During the end-system's authentication, it is scanned using vulnerability and operating system patch assessment tools. A scan reveals potential vulnerabilities of an end system, a key measure of security risk on the network, determining if the device is in compliance with the network security policy.

Once the authentication and/or assessment are complete, the end user is allocated network resources through assignment of a role by the Trusted Access Gateway. If the authentication fails or the assessment indicates a threat, access to the network is denied or the end system is quarantined by the Trusted Access Gateway constraining its access to a highly restrictive set of network resources, such as only a remediation server. The Trusted Access Manager enables the central configuration and monitoring of all Trusted Access Gateways deployed on the enterprise network.