The release of EndPointScan, an industry-first, free online service that allows you to check what devices are or have been connected to computers on your network and by whom, was released recently by GFI Software. The company is an international developer of network security, content security and messaging software. Using this diagnostic utility, you can reveal those areas where the use of portable storage devices could pose a risk to the integrity of the company's systems and informatino.

    For instance earlier this year, a scientist who worked with DuPont was arrested after he had copied $400 million worth of commercially-sensitive data from the network. This is why it is vital for you to know what devices have been or are currently in use on your company's network and to be in a place to take action where the risk of a breach is high. The uncontrolled use of portable mass storage devices -- USB sticks, CDs, floppies, smartphones, MP3 players, handhelds, iPods, digital cameras -- coupled with data theft techniques such as 'pod slurping', are a major threat to network safety and could lead to security breaches, data theft, viruses and other malware being uploaded to a company's network.

    Andre Muscat, director, network security products at GFI, stated: "Over the past few months, we have strived to create awareness on this issue and the launch of this utility is aimed at helping administrators to examine device usage on their network and act accordingly to reduce possible future risks. We have made it a point to keep the utility as simple as possible and easy to use. Our main message is that the cost to take the necessary action tomanage risk is much less than the costs involved reacting to a particular incident. We believe that an end-point security solution such as GFI's EndPointSecurity product is a must in today's highly networked corporate environment. Security companies, including GFI Software, have long warned of the risks of portable storage devices and how vital it is that companies do something about it. Knowing what devices are on your network and the threat they pose is the first step towards minimizing these risks and this is what EndPointScan, an industry-first diagnostic utility, is created to do.

    EndPointScan carries out granular checks across all types of ports -- USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, Infrared, PCMIA and Wi-Fi -- on all machines. This utility offers  complete and thorough information about all portable devices and can scan multiple computers simultaneously. GFI EndPointScan is fully compatible with existing network management or administrative tools such as Active Directory and it will also work on Vista systems.

    Muscat added: "To use EndPointScan all that administrators need to do is install the ActiveX control when prompted and run the scan. There is very low resources consumption and endpoint audits have a negligible effect on network performance."

More information can be found here: http://www.endpointscan.com.