News

REPRINTED FROM SC MAGAZINE JUNE 2001

SSH Sentinel is a software solution designed to secure Internet traffic with the IPsec protocol. It is specifically for end users and therefore it has been designed with ease of use in mind, making deployment as simple as possible. It also works within IETF standards.

SSH Sentinel filters out hostile Internet traffic. This enables the user to secure their own Internet connections for individual security purposes including remote access to their corporate network. It also permits remote administration, file transfer and the sending or receiving of email supporting SMTP and IMAP.

Installation is designed for Windows users on platforms that include Windows 95, 98 NT 4.0, ME and 2000. The actual task itself is very straightforward, employing the usual wizard-based approach and takes around 10 minutes. Once you have accepted the license agreement you have to wait for the keys to be generated. This doesn’t however mean you need a CA or that you have to have PKI, so for the lone installer wanting to communicate with his or her corporate network it is ideal.

SSH Sentinel is a client/server security solut ion that can address security requirements for your remote workforce. Not only is it capable of being used by a single user, but it proves itself as a scalable solution that is also ideal for corporate use. As we’ve said, it supports selfsigned certificates, enabling authentication without an existing PKI. All IPsec + IKE protocol standards are supported and it employs encryption algorithms including Rijndael (AES), Twofish, Blowfish, CAST, triple-DES and DES.

The product is designed to be practical, easy-to-use and intuitive. However, we tested the Beta version (not something we often do) and there were a few areas to be ironed out, including problems with some existing applications. Ed note: None of these anomalies should cause concern though as SSH are well aware of them and assure us that they will be ironed out prior to release. However, you may wish to confirm this with the developers.

Security policies are provided at default (as a framework only), but a Policy Editor is also available within the SSH Sentinel solution to provide the more ambitious single user or the corporate security administrator with extra control on their overall configuration of rules and protocol.

SSH Sentinel accommodates support for the use of a personal firewall to protect workstations from external attacks. So with the ability to use self-signed certificates, which allows the end user to communicate in privacy, SSH Sent inel and a personal firewall can protect a connection from any malicious assault on the working environment while communicating over the Internet.

This adds up to a very workable solution for remote access, providing the single or corporate user with an easily deployed solution for private networking communications with strong and accommodating encryption levels.

© Copyright West Coast Publishing 2001

© 2002 SSH Communications Security Corp. All rights reserved. ssh® is a registered trademark of SSH Communications Security Corp in the United States and in certain other jurisdictions. All other names and marks are property of their respective owners.