Fortress Desktop:

Desktop Logon Policy Enforcement with Real Return on Investment

Here are two ways in which Fortress cuts costs:

By enforcing user logon / logoff times, Fortress Desktop ® minimizes unattended use of concurrent licensing. If users are logging on, grabbing licenses for use, then not using them, additional and unnecessary licenses in this concurrent system are being bought and maintained.

By cutting down on unnecessarily open and active network connections, Fortress Desktop relieves a substantial burden on enterprise hardware. This translates into minimized use of hardware resources and reduced network traffic.

Just Some of Fortress Desktop's Powerful Features

Fortress Desktop provides a powerful new component in any security strategy. Here are just four of the roles it can play in your larger plan:

1) Helpful in compliance with internal or regulatory security standards.
2) It can help protect an army of mobile machines deployed by your organization.
3) It strengthens security policy consistently across a network by enforcing desktop logon policy and empowering individual users to play a role in a more aggressive security strategy.
4) It provides for easy logon and logoff activity tracking.

The Fortress solution accomplishes this with these features and functionality:

• Guarantees that a robust Idle Log Out Screen Saver is always enabled, with a maximum specifiable delay, going beyond the enforcement that is possible using simple group policies and closes some holes in that approach.
• The Idle Log Out Screen Saver guarantees that an inactive computer is locked, and the current user is logged off after a user-customizable amount of time.
• Robust enforcement of logon / logoff times, again going beyond anything configurable in Active Directory or User Management for Domains.
• Can restrict the logons of non-domain users that exist in a local workstation's user account database.
• Tamper-resistant architecture. No one other than administrators can terminate the Fortress Desktop processes once started. Fortress Desktop also enforces the policy that a password-protected screen saver must be used, if so instructed. When configured in this manner, users cannot change or disable the settings.
• Works with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003.
• Ships with the easy-to-use Fortress Desktop Control Panel, where policies can be created for Fortress Desktop clients.
• The FortLock companion utility. FortLock lets users quickly lock their workstation or logoff with a simple desktop button click, task bar icon click, or press of a hotkey. By providing an extremely easy way to lock or logoff a workstation, FortLock encourages end users to adopt good security practices.
• User activity and idle time tracking capability with data conveniently directed to the Windows Application Log. Users of Dorian Software's Event Analyst ® can build reports for this data.
• A small memory footprint, with no discernable impact on system performance.
  
• Enables configuration of:
  * Different policies based on global groups on a domain.
  * Different screen saver restrictions based on time of day.
  * Maximum session time (e.g., user has up to 60 minutes on the system, but then is logged off), including interactive sessions on workstations.
  * Idle Log Out Screen Saver text and graphic can be customized according to company policy.
  
• Remote control of workstations running Fortress Desktop:
  * Workstation can be locked remotely by starting secure screen saver.
  * The user can be logged-off remotely (without shutting down the computer).
  * New Fortress Desktop policies can be pushed-out to clients on demand.
  * Valuable information can be gathered from remote Fortress Desktop clients, including the name of the currently logged-on user.
  
  

Fortress Protects Mobile Machines Too

Fortress Desktop is great for protecting those mobile machines - wherever they may be. Think about all of those mobile users in airports, coffee shops, restaurants, at home, or on site with customers. Those machines are potential liabilities that, when outside of the protection of your physical network, face substantial additional exposure. Here's how Fortress works to protect them:

The encrypting file system (EFS) that ships with Windows 2000 and Windows XP is tied to the user logon account. When a user logs on to a system, their security token is linked to a certificate that allows them to view encrypted files transparently. However, even if the hard disk were removed, EFS-encrypted files and folders would be inaccessible unless you had the user's certificate or the user's account.

However, consider a sales force user stopping by a coffee shop on the way to a customer site. While away from the table, ordering coffee, Pat's computer is stolen - still logged on and on the Net. The EFS does no good, since the thief can rifle through all of the encrypted files as long as there is power to the notebook and the account is logged on.

With Fortress Desktop installed to mobile users' notebooks, it guarantees that extended breaks will result in a locked machine. Moreover, a would-be thief cannot disable the password-protected screen saver timeout period if Fortress Desktop is installed with appropriate policies. So, even if the thief steals the notebook with Pat still logged on, the thief better keep wiggling the mouse - otherwise, the password-protected screen saver will engage, and the stolen goods are rendered useless without extensive work on the thief's part.

Finally, the FortLock buddy program that comes with Fortress encourages Pat and other mobile users to lock the notebook when away from the machine. A small, convenient button bar at the top of the screen lets Pat start the secure screen saver with a click of a button.

Even if this would-be notebook thief is nowhere around, FortLock encourages mobile users to protect sensitive data from curious neighbors.

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