ForeScout Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of continuous monitoring and mitigation solutions for Global 2000 enterprises and government organisations, has announced its fourth consecutive year of being named by Gartner, Inc. as a leader in its 2014 Magic Quadrant report for network access control (NAC)¹. ForeScout offers one of the industry’s most innovative next generation NAC technologies in a network security platform that delivers dynamic visibility, granular control and automated response to access, endpoint compliance and advanced threat risks. As a result, IT organisations can accelerate continuous monitoring and mitigation capabilities and better leverage their security investments.

According to Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control,”² “Most NAC vendors provide good support for the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) use case. Now, the market is evolving to address another use case, where NAC policy servers act as ‘warehouses of context’ and share contextual data with firewalls and other security components to enable fine-grained policy enforcement.”

The report also states, “The BYOD phenomenon continues to be the primary driver for the adoption of network access control (NAC). Without NAC policies, corporate BYOD programs allow unchecked network access by a wide array of personally owned devices, thereby increasing the chances of security risks and network instability. Another important NAC trend is the integration with other security components, such as next generation firewalls, advanced threat defence (ATD) solutions and security information and advanced management (SIEM) solutions. Forward-thinking NAC vendors have positioned their solutions as ‘warehouses of context’ to share contextual information with third-party security components.”³

In this report⁴, “leaders are successful in selling large NAC implementations (10,000 nodes and greater) to multiple large enterprises. Leaders are pure-play NAC vendors or networking and/or security companies that have been first to market with enhanced capabilities as the market matures. Leaders have the resources to maintain their commitment to NAC, have strong channel strength and have financial resources. They have also demonstrated a strong understanding of the future direction of NAC, including the impact of BYOD. Leaders should not equate to a default choice for every buyer, and clients should not assume that they must buy only from vendors in the Leaders quadrant.”

Its flagship product, ForeScout CounterACT™, exemplifies ForeScout’s leadership in continuous monitoring and mitigation. Leveraging its innovative next generation NAC technology, the CounterACT platform provides real-time visibility to users, devices, including BYOD devices, systems and applications and allows IT organisations to centrally apply granular policies to understand their true security posture and to automate response to a wide variety of security issues. Powered by ControlFabric™ technology, the platform also enables network, security and management solutions to dynamically exchange information, which, in turn, allows enterprises to respond to issues more effectively and better leverage their existing security investments.

In addition to Gartner’s recognition, ForeScout received accolades from a number of prestigious organisations in 2014, including being awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2014 Global Technology Leadership Innovation Award in Network Security, receiving SC Magazine’s 5-star, “Best Buy” rating and induction into SC Magazine’s Industry Innovators Hall of Fame.

ForeScout also runs its own award scheme and recently announced that its second annual customer innovation award – The Network Security Game Changer – was presented to Ken Pfeil, global security officer at Pioneer Investments, and Matt Santill, chief information security officer at Broward College. ForeScout established this award to recognise, honour and celebrate customers who are achieving outstanding success with ForeScout solutions and broadly advancing the IT security community.

Ken Pfeil of Pioneer Investments was chosen for his creative approach and success in using ForeScout CounterACT™ within Pioneer Investments’ security infrastructure to enhance endpoint compliance monitoring and integrate controls with other security solutions.

Pioneer Investments deployed ForeScout to fortify measures to support compliance, improve operational oversight and reduce security risks. The firm wanted a security platform that could provide visibility, granular control and more flexible implementation capabilities for its wired and wireless networks – with the ultimate goal of utilising it as a comprehensive control integration and endpoint remediation solution. Beyond the traditional implementation, Pioneer Investments is working toward leveraging the power of CounterACT to integrate with other solutions in its network and gain a more holistic security posture.  Read more about Pioneer Investments’ CounterACT implementation at http://www.forescout.com/forms/sans-what-works-pioneer-investments.

“Given infrastructure complexity, access diversity and advanced threats, the enterprise demand for real-time visibility, increased comprehensive and granular control context, as well as automated mitigation capabilities has fueled our success,” said T. Kent Elliott, CEO of ForeScout. “I’m extremely proud of our team’s ability to deliver innovations that address customer requirements for continuous monitoring and mitigation solutions.”

To receive a complimentary copy of the 2014 Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control,” visit http://www.forescout.com/gartner/.