Safend Protector by Safend Ltd. narrowly claimed the Bronze Award in SearchWindowsSecurity.com's Product of the Year Testing and Auditing category. Safend Protector is an access control, monitoring and policy enforcement tool for network endpoints.

For years, network security has been about protecting the perimeter, but as that perimeter breaks down, the task of shoring up security often gets taken out of the administrator's hands. One place responsibility lands is with the end user. Safend Protector attempts to give the control back to the administrator by providing a robust tool for controlling endpoint security through control and policies that cannot be undermined.

The competition for the Bronze Award was more heated than for the Gold or Silver Awards. Safend Protect ultimately secured the prize by getting high marks for functionality and ease of use. Though one judge pointed out that much of what Safend Protector does from a policy enforcement perspective can be done through Active Directory, he believes that Protector really simplifies the process.

Safend Protector really shines when addressing the problem of removable media. It controls access on physical ports through USB, FireWire, PCMCIA, serial and parallel devices, wireless ports and removable media like CD/DVD drives, floppy drives, SD cards, flash memory, zip drives and tape drives.

Pricing: Prices vary depending on volume, starting at $32 per seat.

SearchWindowsSecurity.com editors