Novell Helps U.S. Navy Batten Down the Hatches

Novell announced that the U.S. Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command (NCDOC) has selected Novell® Sentinel™ to automate and centralize security monitoring across hundreds of diverse locations worldwide. With more than 700,000 users worldwide, NCDOC is one of several military cyber defense teams in the Department of Defense (DOD) and is responsible for around-the-clock protection of the Navy's computer networks.

Novell Sentinel tightly integrates identity data with security information event management, so organizations know who is accessing resources. Having a holistic, real-time view of all network activities gives NCDOC personnel the ability to:

• Prioritize and focus on the most critical issues
• Monitor thousands of sensors and alerts across geographically dispersed networks
• Generate reports in all levels of detail for different audiences, whether commanders, other agency partners or a joint security task force

"Our job 24/7 is to secure and defend Navy networks worldwide against a persistent and adaptive threat," said Jim Granger, director of Capabilities and Readiness at the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command. "Novell Sentinel helps us accomplish that. The biggest military advantage is the power of information. We rely on the security of our networks to get the right information to the right people quickly."

The organization's 180 employees continuously analyze huge volumes of network information gathered from ships, aircraft and shore facilities across the globe. The vast number of cyber security sensors and corresponding alerts from these sites placed an inordinate burden on staff responsible for carefully evaluating each incident. NCDOC addressed this challenge by creating PROMETHEUS, a suite of tools that monitors, reports and analyzes malicious network activity. PROMETHEUS uses Novell Sentinel as the security event management front-end to monitor tens of thousands of network events per day and the SAS Intelligence Platform as the data warehouse back-end.

The PROMETHEUS system accesses and aggregates data from all portions of the network - including system logs, Web logs, e-mail logs, firewall logs and router logs - and prepares and stores the data for analysis and reporting. Novell Sentinel alerts and prioritizes all security events in a centralized dashboard for security operators. This allows the Command to focus on those that require their immediate attention.

"With Novell Sentinel, we have a unified, real-time view of malicious activity across our diverse global environment from a central console," said Keith Rohwer, NCDOC director of Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation. "We can customize what we want to see and prioritize everything according to the seven standard security levels."

Jim Ebzery, senior vice president and general manager, of Identity and Security said, "The ability to monitor network events and provide a real-time view of all activities so abnormalities are identified and remediated quickly, thus avoiding serious incidents, is critical for the armed forces to assure safety. No one has more stringent security criteria than our armed forces. It's extremely rewarding that the U.S. Navy is among the many federal agencies entrusting their network security to Novell."