Many organizations have misdiagnosed a critical endpoint security and IT problem, the collection of endpoint data. The mistake is thinking, “We have too much data!” While organizations may have a large volume of data, they are still not collecting complete data, or in some cases not collecting data at all, from the many endpoints in their environment.
Many organizations have:
- Silos of security data that are focused on a particular control but can’t be correlated with other controls
- Dark zones in their networks where network connectivity is intermittent or where access is tightly controlled
- Device blind spots that can’t be monitored with existing technology • Moving endpoints that switch networks or are virtual often are unable to scan or transmit the data when disconnected
Agent bloat (every control has an agent and collection infrastructure) and agent drag (software performance concerns) have caused IT departments to choose between having visibility or being blinded by not installing agents. Together these factors reinforce the perception that organizations have too much security and compliance data when in reality they have too much agent management overhead.
Enterprises struggling to find a balance between agent overhead and security and compliance data should look for a solution that:
- Monitors critical endpoints including laptops, desktops, servers, network devices, and cloud and virtualized assets
- Eliminate data blind spots with lightweight and resilient agents
- Reach low bandwidth and intermittent networks by employing best practices for communication
- Have greater agent and platform resilience and security
One Platform for Endpoint Intelligence
Fortra's Tripwire Axon® is an extensible next generation endpoint data collection and communication platform that delivers uninterrupted visibility, a resilient architecture and improved responsiveness—while augmenting and leveraging industry-leading technology and content for security, compliance and IT operations.
Simply stated, Tripwire Axon is a foundational agent technology and platform that enables flexible data collection and resilient communication across a broad range of devices, cloud and virtualized assets.
Tripwire Axon Components
Tripwire Axon Agent
The Tripwire Axon agent is natively-compiled and operates efficiently and optimized for overall system resource utilization and network bandwidth. The agent is resilient and rarely needs to be restarted and refreshed to deal with out-of-sync errors.
Tripwire Axon Bridge
The Tripwire Axon bridge is used by Tripwire Axon agents to securely deliver data to a consuming product, such as the Tripwire® Enterprise Console. The agent and bridge use the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol and X.509 certificates to secure the connection. Each Tripwire Enterprise installation includes the Tripwire Axon bridge.
Tripwire Axon Broker
The Tripwire Axon broker is delivered using Apache ActiveMQ, an open source enterprise-class message broker. The broker serves as the messaging fabric for communication and provides persistence for messages. This ensures that messages are delivered and recovered if either the console or agents are unavailable. The broker also supports cross-language clients. Each Tripwire Enterprise installation includes the Tripwire Axon broker.
Tripwire Axon Agent Manager
The Tripwire Axon agent manager provides oversight of the Tripwire Axon agents. It tracks the current state of agents, their connectivity and their configuration (capabilities). The agent manager also communicates state changes and heartbeat for Tripwire Axon agents.
Extend Security to a Broader Range of Systems
Today’s cyber threats have changed scope, tactics and volume. Bad actors are targeting endpoints like laptops and desktops where security controls are minimized and configurations are not closely monitored. In addition, enterprises are anticipating exponential growth in the number of endpoint targets. Tripwire Enterprise on the Tripwire Axon platform can monitor and secure this expanded set of endpoints. This increased visibility makes it possible for your team to reduce your attack surface, monitor endpoint configurations and respond to threats.
Tripwire Axon is the next generation technology that exemplifies “low-touch.” Tripwire Axon agents are not only natively compiled to work with your preferred OS, they’re designed to be lean, agile and compact to ensure improved performance on the endpoint and low network impact.
Extend Coverage to Systems with Network Connectivity Challenges
Enterprise networks are more diverse and sophisticated than ever, often employing secure zones with strict communication requirements. The endpoints on enterprise networks are highly-distributed and may use lower bandwidth or unstable network connections. Tripwire Enterprise with Tripwire Axon provides a communication framework that resolves these network connectivity challenges. The Tripwire Axon platform is also highly configurable and can support the requirements of the most secure networks, as well as virtual and cloud implementations.
The Tripwire Axon platform is a next generation technology that redefines how endpoints communicate and collect data. Communication is resilient to network changes and outages, and is designed to work with the most secure or otherwise unreachable networks.
Reduce Agent Management Overhead
The overhead of some security systems can overshadow the benefit and features these systems provide. Some agents must be monitored constantly and many can’t survive system upgrades leading to a higher cost of ownership. Tripwire Axon employs next-generation agent technology that was purpose built to be unified and modular—a pluggable architecture designed to manage different types of data transmission and data collection while being extensible to new endpoint systems and applications. Enterprises will spend less time, effort, personnel and budget managing Tripwire Axon enabled solutions.
Enhanced Use Cases for Tripwire Enterprise
Tripwire Enterprise capabilities and value can now be extended to additional devices and across more networks than before.