Centrify Encrypts Trusted System Traffic

According to Frank Cabri, Centrify vice president of marketing and business development, it’s become too easy to mimic a trusted machine by assigning an IP or MAC address to any machine on the network. Trusted systems, which usually contain the most valuable data in the enterprise, need an encrypted set of tunnels to communicate with other trusted machines that can be centrally administered by IT, he said.

Centrify next week is rolling out a DirectSecure application to provide that capability via Microsoft’s Active Directory, which can be managed from a central DirectManage console that accesses a policy engine embedded in DirectSecure. The Centrify system sets up a cross-platform peer-to-peer network that spaces trusted Windows, Linux and UNIX systems. Connection with Linux and UNIX systems is made via the IPsec protocol that extends Microsoft’s Server and Domain Isolation capabilities to those systems. As a result, users can set up encrypted tunnels with those systems using Microsoft’s DirectAccess software.

DirectSecure is an element of Centrify’s suite of security tools, which include Direct Authorize,  which manages which users have access to what systems,  and Direct Audit, which tracks which users accessed what systems.

The Centrify suite is priced starting at $350 per guest operating system on a server.