Boosting IT security is the premise behind a new partnership between Symantec Corp. and TruSecure Corp, company officials said Monday.
Symantec is best known for its Norton line of anti-virus and utility products, although the company’s managed security services offerings are also covered in the deal. Herndon, Va.-based TruSecure offers enterprise risk-management services that assess IT network and computer security.
The two companies will team on a number of fronts to boost customer security, with Symantec offering TruSecure’s IT enterprise security services while TruSecure returns the favour by recommending Symantec’s managed security services to its customers, the companies said.
As part of the agreement, Symantec Security Services will include the TruSecure Service Provider 2001 security monitoring and response service to its worldwide Security Operations Centers, the companies said. TruSecure will add Symantec’s NetRecon vulnerability assessment tool to the suite of products the company uses when evaluating its customers’ security.
The companies will also recommend and resell each other’s services to customers needing them, according to Charlie Johnson, vice-president of global business development at Symantec in Cupertino, Calif.
Canadian customers stand to benefit from this partnership, said Michael Murphy, Canadian general manager for Symantec Corp. in Toronto. He said Symantec would use TruSecure’s security-assessment program to ensure the security of its Security Operations Centers, which the company uses for security monitoring and response.
“Strong partnerships are going to drive growth, especially in the security market space,” Murphy said.
“Part of the evolution of Symantec has been to offer services to our customers and part of that is managed security services. It’s sort of what TruSecure was providing as well,” he added. “We felt we should approach them and look at how can they certify not just our products, but certify our Security Operation Centers and services as well.”
Johnson said teaming with TruSecure was necessary, as Symantec needed an independent, vendor-neutral company that it could refer its customers to for security tests and audits.
Through the partnership, customers will now have an easier time building the complete security architecture needed to combat threats like the Nimda and Code Red worms that blend traditional worm or virus characteristics with hacking exploits and social engineering, Johnson said, adding that architecture has to move beyond anti-virus software to include firewalls, intrusion-detection systems and other such protection.
For its part, TruSecure needed a partner that it could send customers to after audits, since it doesn’t provide the ongoing security services Symantec does, instead only offering audits, recommendations and monitoring, said Sanjay Mehta, vice-president of business development at TruSecure.
Under the deal between the two companies, customers will be able to go to one location for security audits, implementation, management, maintenance and validation, Mehta said.
TruSecure Corp. in Herndon, Va., can be reached at http://www.trusecure.com/.
Symantec Corp., in Toronto, is at http://www.symantec.com/region/can/eng/.
– With files from IDG News Service.
