Alliance brings HP's Federal Consulting and Integration team and Secure Elements together to deliver a full solution for
OMB Federal Desktop Core Configuration compliance monitoring and reporting.

    The industry leader in standards-based IT audit and compliance management, Secure Elements, announced today that it is working with HP to provide customers with a one-stop shop for enterprise-level NIST SCAP Validated security compliance solutions.

    Secure Elements and HP will provide total NIST SCAP validated solutions to more efficiently enable government agencies to continuously monitor and report their desktop configurations in support of recent U.S. Office of Management and Budget mandates, under the terms of an agreement between the companies. The solutions provide an integrated offering to include
hardware, software, support and services.

    The alliance is the first of its kind in support of the OMB mandate for secure desktop configurations and the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC). There is a key deadline to meet: the next phase of the OMB mandate requires government agencies to submit their FDCC system audit results to NIST for statistical analysis and review by March 31, 2008.

    The solutions from Secure Elements and HP will address several major concerns for agencies implementing security compliance and FISMA automation initiatives:
    * The companies' compliance monitoring solution is available immediately - as an outsourced service or as an internally
managed solution

    * The solution utilizes people and processes, not just technologies. The depth and breadth of HP's consulting and
integration expertise is available to provide a full solution that includes implementation, support, training and business
process alignment

    * The solution takes into consideration the unique policy issues that go beyond the OMB mandate. Now there is
outsourced support for activities such as benchmark adaptation in support of an agency's specific polices, security posture
analysis and vulnerability program management

    In order to deploy these solutions across an enterprise, HP provides agencies with the IT security consulting, systems integration and rapid technology implementation needed.