If there were an award for Supersleuth Marketing Team of the year, STEALTHbits' would be on the short list. We've crept around corridors and hid out in conference rooms to bring you the latest buzz on groundbreaking products that'll be out soon. Earlier this year, we brought you a first look at StealthINTERCEPT, a game-changing real-time Active Directory solution. Now, we've cornered Dave Bullas, Product Manager for Active Directory, and convinced him to answer just a few questions about the latest thing to be coming through STEALTHbits' doors in the near future.

Daria: We saw "StealthMAINTAIN for Active Directory" written on a whiteboard in Conference Room B the other day. What can you tell us about it?

Dave: Absolutely nothing. It's classified, eh?

Daria: But the blogosphere wants to know! Is it a new product?

Dave: I can't give you a lot of details, but if you think about the name, StealthMAINTAIN, maybe it'll become a little clearer.

Daria: Maintain – like maintenance? Maintenance and clean-up?

Dave: Exactly – this product will be an extension to our existing SMP for Active Directory solution, and will allow users to perform remediation and provide them with insight into AD groups, users, and computers.

Daria: How is that different from what we have today?

Dave: It will give admins information from across their environments, allowing them to make decisions about changes much quicker. Since AD is a critical part of the File System, Exchange, SharePoint, and more, this solution will really provide visibility beyond what they can currently see, like effective rights and circular nesting across various data repositories.

Daria: Sounds cool!

Dave: We think so. But I have to head to meeting now.

Daria: But we have more questions!

Dave: This conversation never happened.

GLEN ROCK, NJ--(November 10, 2010) - STEALTHbits Technologies today announced that its StealthAUDIT Management Platform (SMP) was chosen as a winner in the Best of Connections 2010 awards program in the "Best Windows Product" category by Penton Media's DevConnections. SMP is a comprehensive framework featuring audit, reporting, compliance, and remediation capabilities across the Microsoft computing platform, including solutions for Exchange, ActiveSync, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Active Directory, SharePoint, Windows Desktop and Server Operating Systems, Windows File Systems, and beyond.

"We are thrilled to have received the 'Best Windows Product' award recognizing StealthAUDIT's ability to answer the toughest IT questions across the Microsoft landscape," said Adam Laub, VP of Marketing and Technical Operations at STEALTHbits. "We're excited to have had the opportunity to showcase our unique approach to Microsoft infrastructure and application management which our customers have found so valuable, and are grateful to the Penton Media team for their acknowledgement of our achievement in this field."

The Best of Connections awards recognize companies based on their innovation, strategic importance to the market, competitive advantage and exceptional value to customers. The winners were chosen from more than 80 nominated products in six (6) categories. The field was narrowed to three finalists in each category. Finalists were interviewed at the DevConnections 2010 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2-3 to determine the winners in each category. Winners were announced live from the DevConnections 2010 exhibitor's floor at 2 pm on Thursday, November 4.

"Narrowing down the list of nominees to 18 finalists in the six Connections categories was a challenge, considering that we were faced with so many top-tier products and services," said Amy Eisenberg, Executive Editor for Windows IT Pro, "but in the end, we came up with six very deserving winners. We're proud of our selections, and we believe all our finalists and winners represent the best of the best in their categories."

About STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc.
STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc. is an innovative technology leader in the Microsoft Infrastructure and Application Management space. STEALTHbits' StealthAUDIT Management Platform bridges the gap between IT Management and Compliance, providing a unified framework by which to measure, manage, and maintain. STEALTHbits Technologies can be found online at stealthbits.com.

Editorial Contact
Adam Laub
VP, Marketing
+1.201.447.9308

Related Articles
Congratulations to the Best of Connections 2010 Winners! by Jason Bovberg, Windows IT Pro Magazine

GLEN ROCK, NJ (07/15/09) - STEALTHbits Technologies' software solution, SMP for Public Folders, makes short work of preparing organizations of any size for their Public Folder to SharePoint migration. STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc., an innovative leader in the Microsoft infrastructure and application management space, is changing the way organizations tackle this daunting task through programmatic workflow involving the assessment, analysis, and remediation of Public Folders, all within a single product.

Over the past decade, many organizations have allowed their Public Folder environments to grow out of control, migrating unneeded, out-of-date content from one version of Exchange to the next. While cheap disk space proved to be an effective short term solution for minimizing Public Folder clean-up efforts, the long term costs of hurling hardware at a software problem now far outweigh the benefits realized by delaying the inevitable.

In 2006, Microsoft announced they would be "de-emphasizing" Public Folders in future versions of Exchange, causing widespread panic among Exchange Administrators, Compliance Auditors, and CIO's alike, as cleaning up this massive repository of unchartered data would surely present an overwhelming burden on IT resources. While Microsoft has since extended their deadline for supporting Public Folders, the need to understand what is in the environment, who actually owns the content, and what can be done with each and every Public Folder remains a ticking time bomb for any organization still supporting Public Folders.

STEALTHbits has incorporated cutting-edge techniques into their offering to hurdle some of the most difficult challenges in assessing and analyzing Public Folder data, such as identifying the "Most Probable Owner" of a Public Folder and soliciting end-user feedback as part of the decision-making process through integrated SendMail and Survey Modules. STEALTHbits' Public Folder Action Module rounds out the workflow with a myriad of options for remediating Public Folder content in just a few clicks.

STEALTHbits' customers have realized incredible results in only days and weeks (compared to months and years) by using over 30 out-of-the-box reports specifically designed to dissect the Public Folder environment into manageable data subsets, as well as the native ability to create customized data collection routines, reports, and views answering the toughest business questions. One large financial customer was able to retire over 5,000 folders and reclaim over 50GB of storage within 3 weeks of implementing the solution, in addition to recertifying Public Folder permissions for all 300,000+ folders.

STEALTHbits offers project, subscription, and perpetual based licensing models for SMP for Public Folders or can be purchased as an integrated component of STEALTHbits' SMP for Exchange Solution Suite.

For additional information and free trial opportunities for SMP for Public Folders and the StealthAUDIT Management Platform, visit www.stealthbits.com.

ABOUT STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc.
STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc. is an innovative technology leader in the Microsoft infrastructure and application management space.

Unlike traditional frameworks that are a mile wide and an inch deep, STEALTHbits has taken a unique approach. Built upon a common platform and shared services, the StealthAUDIT Management Platform (SMP) is as broad as it is deep across multiple areas of OS and application Management, Auditing, Reporting, Compliance, and Remediation. With concentrated focus around Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, BlackBerry, and Windows Systems, STEALTHbits provides organizations of all sizes the visibility needed to manage systems and applications effectively and efficiently through a single interface, a common platform, and light-weight architecture.

Editorial Contact
Adam Laub
STEALTHbits Technologies, Inc.
+1.201.447.9300

Permissions get messy over time. Whether it's in Exchange, SharePoint, the File System, Active Directory, or elsewhere, people will enter and leave the organization, change roles, and require different levels of access as time goes on. Exchange mailbox permissions offer a particular challenge because of multiple layers of access: permissions associated to mailboxes, delegate rights assigned, and even mailbox rights in Active Directory on the user's account.

Multiple problems can result: Default and Anonymous access can be set incorrectly, default settings could have been changed, Stale and Zombie SIDs could be applied, or disabled accounts in AD could have been given access. Compounding the problem, effective rights are difficult to discern because of the various 'gates' that a person can use to get access.

Largely, the problem stems from the sheer amount of data, exacerbated by time and natural changes in personnel. It's that same vast number of settings that makes it difficult to solve the problem in an environment; imagine finding an access issue that exists in 500 users' accounts. Changing them one at a time could take days, and requires the use of precious IT resources.

A complete solution offers the option of making changes in bulk, in accord with data that exactly identifies an issue or anomaly. To learn more about Mailbox Management challenges, and see what STEALTHbits' SMP for Exchange can do to help, check out this video of our Mailbox Action Module STEALTHsession.

We all know that information is the ultimate asset, as well as being the largest and most challenging area of risk to organizations these days. The data ranges from being proprietary to confidential, encompassing everything from personal files to healthcare details to financial or even government regulatory related documents. Data is constantly generated by internal users, partners, external customers, and even by automated systems. The volume of data is easily in the Terabytes at most organizations, and spans many applications from Messaging and Collaboration (Exchange, Public Folder, and SharePoint) to the largest and most problematic area, the Distributed Shared File System. Organizations are in desperate need of tools that help establish a Data Governance program that satisfies compliance requirements, reduces risk of data exposure, and can quickly be implemented without a long, costly, and complex roll-out to the organization.

1. The first step in initiating a data governance program involves the creation of a governing body. The governing body usually consists of executive leadership, project management, line-of-business managers, and data stewards. The identification of a data steward is essential. He or she will have a large list of responsibilities including, but not limited to, improving data quality and security. The team usually employs some methodology for tracking and improving enterprise data, such as Six Sigma, and tools for data mapping, profiling, cleansing, and monitoring. Data Governance programs are largely dependent on lines of communication with these governing body members.

2. The next step is establishing the target repositories of data that are to be included in the data governance program. Initial implementations may vary in scope as well as origin. Sometimes, an executive mandate will arise to initiate an enterprise-wide effort, while at other times, the mandate will be to create a pilot project or projects, limited in scope and objectives. Usually, reduced scope or mandated programs aim to either resolve existing issues, or to demonstrate achievable results and value. Some examples of these targeted repositories may include Shared File Systems, Active Directory, Mailboxes, Public Folders, and collaborative environments like Share Point. There are many vendors with multiple tools and bundled products that can tap into these applications. For instance, the StealthAUDIT Management Platform (SMP) from STEALTHbits Technologies provides deep visibility into all of these application spaces.

In order to streamline ongoing data governance processes, as well as operational and capital expenditures, content should be assessed to determine what is out there and pruned wherever possible. On average, organizations incur a monthly cost of around $55 to maintain one Gigabyte of data storage. Gartner even estimates that 70% of unstructured data goes untouched as soon as 90 days after initial creation. That quickly translates into large sums of cost and wasted resources due to stale data. Archiving data to lower cost storage tiers can help or slow the capacity demands, but deleting the data will actually free up these valuable storage resources. Tools like SMP empower administrators to quickly find and assess stale and/or unauthorized data. SMP in particular allows you to correlate data to the most probable owners, programmatically interact with thousands of those data custodians with ease through in-product surveys, and ultimately reclaim storage capacity by cleaning up unnecessary content.

3. The next critical task is the proactive review of permissions in conjunction with ownership recertification and entitlement review processes. Basically, knowing who has what level of access to which resource is of the utmost importance. However, permissions are a complex web weaved through any organization. Starting at the domain level within Active Directory, Users and Groups form the foundation of control over what resources can be accessed throughout your infrastructure. Individual systems extend the boundary of where Users and Groups can be created. Local system administrators, ultimately, have access to the resources that reside on those systems. Digging even deeper, users and groups can be granted access directly or via policies to shares, folders, and even to individual files. In order to assess and/or secure your data, all of those points, policies, and inheritance spots must be evaluated and considered in the equation of determining a userÌs effective level of access rights to the data in the Domain. Care must be taken before removing users from any of those permission points, as the removal or deny action could break their access to other valid and business-critical resources across the domain. SMP empowers Domain and System administrators to audit, assess, truly understand, and control which users have access to what resources within their infrastructure, crossing traditional application boundaries with a single tool. Furthermore, SMP goes above and beyond to show all paths to how a user is inheriting access rights to resources. In addition, SMP also features built-in, proven business intelligence that identifies key owners of Shared Systems and Repositories based on multiple evaluation points such as who has access, claims ownership, or posted the most information, while easily filtering out administrative groups or even disabled users.

4. Finally, constant monitoring is required to provide a historical view into how your environment is changing. Knowing who gave out or delegated access, or who is using their rights to interact with resources, is critical, especially when something goes wrong. SMP provides insight into who is creating new users or groups at the domain and system levels, and allows you to see who is connecting to your systems and how, as well as who is interacting with and changing what data.

The StealthAUDIT Management Platform (SMP) is highly effective at mitigating the risk of financial loss resulting from inappropriate access to or storage of privileged data spread across your Microsoft infrastructure. The management platform is a simple, low-cost approach to knowing who mightÛor who didÛaccess what data. In addition, StealthAUDIT gives administrators complete visibility into the content from the Domain level to Distributed Systems, right down to the individual data itself. The management platform provides a proven workflow to effect change that ultimately reduces risk and reclaims storage capacity.

Understanding who is opening another user's mailbox is an integral Compliance requirement within any regulated institution. Whether Security needs to monitor executive mailboxes for users probing for information on confidential material, or find the Exchange administrators taking advantage of their elevated mailbox support rights, it is pertinent to have a single consolidated view that highlights these access violations.

Data leakage can cause both financial and reputational damage to an organization. The business, with the IT team, needs to come together to identify what should be monitored and how, while ensuring that the tools implemented do not pose risk to the integrity of the systems.

There are tools in the market that can answer this business question using a variety of unique approaches. Most common is an agent that sits on the Exchange server and runs within the Exchange process, intercepting the traffic. This provides in-depth and granular details around who is doing what in the monitored mailboxes. This agent approach provides an abundant amount of information, but it also poses significant risk of causing serious outages on the systems. Other solutions scan the event log for specific event IDs that identify access violations. Again, these solutions provide the required data, but require administrators to turn up diagnostic logging. For larger organizations, this is often not a viable option, as the amount of events logged when diagnostic logging is turned up can cause a significant volume influx of events. Maintaining history can become very difficult.

A new and different approach, from STEALTHbits Technologies, is similar to the agent variety, but does not pose as much risk. This approach utilizes the existing WMI/PowerShell queries, as you would see in ESM, to find non-owner access. You also maintain history on this data as Microsoft overwrites previous data as soon as the user logs out of the mailbox. Additional data processing and business intelligence isolates executives and rogue admins for focused monitoring. This approach eliminates the risk of an outage as it simply uses the native Windows Scheduler on the remote Exchange server that sits idle and on low priority, watching the resources around it.

Whether understanding access violations is a requirement in an organization or not, it is certainly a common request from senior management. Instead of implementing a "big brother" solution that quietly monitors logon violations, some organizations choose to notify the mailbox owner immediately with this information. In either case, the technology remains the same, and it is pertinent to find a solution that not only meets the business needs, but also does not cause any degradation in services.