Snooping kit excites network managers

Hi-tech big brother kit was the belle of the recent Computer Security Institute's conference in Chicago this week.

According to Wired magazine, products boasting law enforcement or 'Echelon-level' features were proving big sellers.

Among the products were Guidance Software's EnCase, which was used by federal agents investigating the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and also led to indictments of Enron and 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid.

EnCase is one of many law enforcement products re-designed for businesses, allowing them to 'conduct full-scale electronic investigations' to handle situations 'ranging from deleted and stolen information [to] downloading porn, and other liabilities'.

Another popular number was ActivatorDesk's Enterprise Desktops Controller, which watches what employees do on their computers and compares the goings-on to a list of approved activities.

ActivatorDesk can instantly implement a 'lockdown policy' and send network administrators an alert by email.

WinWhatWhere's customers were told that the latest version of its Investigator monitoring software features 'title III friendly deployment', conforming to recent legal rulings on keystroke monitoring.

It also offers 'stealth webcam monitoring', snapping images to tie PC usage to specific individuals, and key-phrase alerts, monitoring for a specific phrase and sending instant notification if it is spotted.

Another popular piece of security software at the conference was AXS-One's Compliance Portal, an email collection and storage product specifically for financial institutions. It grabs, extracts and archives internal and external emails from the server.