Comments on: Cisco Security Agent Version 6 - CSA

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:29:14 +0000

Hi Dave,

We are involved in the BETA also but cannot release any information relating to the product due to NDA.
The stuff you have pointed out has already been released in various presentations and news articles by Cisco so I think we are ok with that.

What I will say is that it is far easier to deploy imho, you get far less interference from CSA. I will also confirm that CLAMAV has proved “interesting” in our trials, it seems to kick up false positives here and there.
The Default policies seem to fit quite nicely into most environments, then as you say you need to flick into advanced mode to start creating exception policies.

Cheers,

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:34:21 +0000

Our sales rep got us a beta version. They have a “basic” view and “advanced” view now. Advanced is the same old CSA view, basic hides many of the items to make granular policies. antivirus included was CLAM antivirus (opensource). From default, it quarantined my logon scripts, which are simple and clearly not infected with anything. The exceptions wizard is one step by default.

Haven’t had time to do a formal test yet..

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:47:38 +0000

….the wait continues as we still see no sign of CSA 6. However for all those who are anticipating the release I have it on good authority that Cisco are aiming to have it out in August, despite their website still claiming a release date of May!

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:26:56 +0000

Hi Tom,

Apologies, we havent really had time to keep up to moderating comments lately. The first post you make has to be approved. All posts after this are automatically approved.
Even with Akismet spam filter we still get several hundred spam posts every couple of months so we opted to be quite restrictive

Cisco had previously provided release notes for version 6 but no downloads. We were half way through speccing it up for a customer before we realised. Could have been very embarassing

We were actually very early adopters of CSA. We were involved in early Alpha’s and Beta’s and were one of the first to offer it as a managed service, so we do have quite a history with it

Cheers,

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:10:34 +0000

Richard, is this not an open forum?

What did you find offensive about my posts?

I await your reply…

Tom

By: Tom Steger

Tom Steger — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:44:51 +0000

We’ve used CSA since 4.0.1. Though it has a steep learning curve, once configured properly, it has no peer.

I’m looking forward to version 6 as it is supposed to simplify management and provide some new features.

By: Tom Steger

Tom Steger — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:04:14 +0000

I’ve been using CSA since late 2003 and though it had a fairly steep learning curve at first, I can’t think of a more versatile product from protecting desktops.

I am looking forward to v6 as it is supposed to make things a bit simpler.

I wasn’t aware that Cisco had released v6 before?

Tom

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:19:31 +0000

It will probably be as problematic as ever

The download isnt actually available until May. Last time Cisco “released” CSA 6 we never got it. Wonder if the same will happen again?

By: Andrew Mason

Andrew Mason — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:48:04 +0000

I wonder if this will have the same integration headaches as CSA5 and CSA4. I have been using CSA5 for quite a while and installed quite a few. It is great if you tone it down and use it as an advanced personal firewall but there are issues with all the application stuff unless the machine has a very distinct role.

Looking forward to see what CSA 6 has to offer.