AirTran Airlines Relies on Gideon Technologies for IT Visibility and Risk Metrics

ATLANTA, May 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Gideon Technologies, an advanced software developer that helps organizations visualize enterprise IT risks and improve IT effectiveness, today announced that AirTran Airlines has deployed its SecureFusion software for IT asset discovery, vulnerability, configuration and policy management.

AirTran uses SecureFusion for centralized visibility of all IT assets in order to understand risk, manage remediation and patch levels, and compare and report changes and improvements against policy in a repeatable, accurate way.

The SecureFusion suite is modular by design, completely agentless in deployment, and complements a proven methodology for visualizing, prioritizing and measuring remediation and enterprise IT risk. At AirTran, the SecureFusion Asset Discovery module provides a comprehensive, accurate view of all networks and IT assets. The SecureFusion Vulnerability Management and Configuration Management modules provide an automated, continuous auditing process for measuring and ensuring compliance with AirTran's security standards. AirTran uses the SecureFusion suite to maintain an accurate inventory of all IT assets, manage a continuous enterprise-wide vulnerability management process and oversee internally-mandated and externally-regulated policies from the SecureFusion service-oriented architecture (SOA) Portal. SecureFusion Policy Management also enables AirTran to measure IT operations and remediation efforts against established policies.

"With SecureFusion, not only do we know the location of all our IT assets, we can also determine software versioning, the latest patch levels, hardware configuration data, RAM, etc.," said Michelle Stewart, the leader for Information Security efforts at AirTran Airways. "With this information, we can prioritize protection around our critical IT assets, ascertain problems in our field locations before sending a technician on site, and review configuration details ahead of server or other technology initiatives. In this way, SecureFusion benefits our IT operations team as well as our security group."

AirTran relies on SecureFusion for continuous scanning of all network assets, identifying even "rogue" or unmanaged assets. SecureFusion adds intelligence to IT asset visibility by continuously checking system, software and security configuration settings on AirTran's assets. SecureFusion rolls all IT asset and configuration data into a centralized portal for ease of reporting. The portal view can be altered by departmental role, so that security teams readily find IT asset vulnerability and risk information, while network operations can focus on asset configuration details. AirTran then analyzes this data as a critical step in planned software and hardware upgrades. The security team also uses the portal to manage its own policies and measure compliance.

"We used to have many manual processes for checking patch levels, ad-hoc vulnerability scans and other security issues," said Stewart. "SecureFusion gives us an automated tool to validate if our IT risk management goals are being met. Using SecureFusion has immediately lowered costs at AirTran by reducing the travel necessary to conduct an accurate inventory of IT assets across more than 50 airports."

"We are delighted to be helping AirTran increase IT efficiency and security," said Ken Halley, CEO of Gideon Technologies. "SecureFusion is an ideal fit with AirTran's proactive approach to reducing IT risk and keeping IT operations running smoothly. AirTran now enjoys greater network visibility and they have the continuous compliance oversight to assist in making IT operations as secure as possible."

About AirTran Airways

AirTran Airways , a Fortune 1000 company and one of America's largest low-fare airlines with more than 8,000 friendly, professional Crew Members, operates more than 700 daily flights to 56 destinations. The airline's hub is at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where it is the second largest carrier. AirTran Airways' aircraft features the fuel- efficient Boeing 737-700 and 717-200 to create America's youngest all-Boeing fleet. The airline is also the first carrier to install XM Satellite Radio on a commercial aircraft and the only airline with Business Class and XM Satellite Radio on every flight. For reservations or more information, visit http://www.airtran.com/ (America Online Keyword: AirTran).

About Gideon Technologies

Gideon Technologies, formerly doing business as The Gideon Group, provides the clearest view of assets and risk in the enterprise IT environment. Its SecureFusion software helps enterprises continuously visualize all IT assets, prioritize risk accordingly and measure remediation efforts for the most complete, accurate, repeatable risk assessment. For more information, contact Gideon Technologies at 770-335-9685 or visit http://www.gideontechnologies.com/.