Microsoft Forefront Stirling

Microsoft ForeFront Stirling

Forefront codename “Stirling” is an integrated security system that delivers comprehensive, coordinated protection across endpoints, messaging and collaboration servers, and the network edge that is easier to manage and control.

By delivering simplified management and providing critical visibility into threats, vulnerabilities, and configuration risks, “Stirling” helps you reduce costs and achieve greater insight into your enterprise security state.

“Stirling” will integrate the next-generation versions of Forefront Client Security, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, Forefront Security for SharePoint, and Internet Security and Acceleration Server (to be renamed the Forefront Threat Management Gateway).

Dynamic Response

Microsoft Stirling

Dynamic response, an innovative feature of the Stirling integrated security system, saves IT staff considerable time by automatically responding to incoming threats.

By sharing and using security information across the IT environment, “Stirling” and dynamic response help to save time while proactively securing the environment.

Comprehensive, Coordinated Protection

"Stirling" delivers comprehensive, coordinated protection, enabling dynamic responses to new and emerging threats across endpoints, messaging and collaboration servers, and the network edge.

Automatically Identify and Dynamically Respond to Threats

“Stirling” protection technologies share information about the security state of assets in an organisation. This information spans the IT environment: from endpoints, to messaging and collaboration servers, to network edge security. Based on the severity of the information, the system dynamically responds to protect the organisation at multiple layers of the IT environment. “Stirling” helps IT to save time and effort while proactively securing the environment.

Integrated Platform

“Stirling” breaks the soiled approach to enterprise security by integrating comprehensive, next-generation protection technologies across the IT environment: anti-malware, host firewall, anti-spam, content filtering, multi-engine protection for messaging and collaboration systems, network edge protection, and others.

By bringing together signature, heuristic, behavioural, and reputation-based techniques from multiple vendors into a single solution, “Stirling” provides world-class, coordinated protection against complex threats.

Single Pane of Glass

In addition to a central management console for security configuration and enterprise-wide visibility, “Stirling” integrates:

The next-generation Forefront Client Security
The next-generation Forefront Security for Exchange Server
The next-generation Forefront Security for SharePoint
The next-generation Internet Security & Acceleration Server, to be renamed Forefront Threat Management Gateway

Optimised Security Policies

Unlike the traditional approach to security management that focuses on configuring security products and technologies, “Stirling” defines and manages security policies based on what is important to protect: asset groups of machines and users. This focused approach to policy management makes it much easier to configure settings and also reduces the risk of mis-configurations.

Integration with Existing Infrastructure

“Stirling” is designed to integrate and work with the Microsoft infrastructure. It is built on System Center Operations Manager 2007 and SQL Server. Signature and agent deployment is optimised to work with Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). “Stirling” can also use existing groups in Active Directory to deploy policies. Through tight integration with Network Access Protection (NAP), “Stirling” ensures that only endpoints that comply with your IT security policy can access the network. By getting more value out of the existing infrastructure, “Stirling” reduces complexity and simplifies security management.

Real-time Security State Information

“Stirling” provides real-time information on the security state of the IT environment in one dashboard. “Stirling” aggregates threats and vulnerability data across layers and enables real-time reporting and analysis. In the dashboard, IT professionals can easily get a quick snapshot of the security state of their environment and understand whether or not the IT environment is secure.

Investigation and Remediation

The dashboard in “Stirling” is hyperlinked to connect directly to critical information and to remediation. The security dashboard is a key launch point for other reports, allowing IT professionals to investigate and drill down into security issues as much as needed. With only a few clicks from a report, IT professionals can also remediate security issues, providing better control over the IT environment.

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