Although you may have stringent security at your corporate
network border, your network is really only as secure as the endpoints
that are accessing it. With today’s workforce becoming more mobile
and often requiring access to corporate resources from a variety
of locations—airports, coffee shops, hotels—and from a variety of
endpoints—both company-provisioned and personal—you must logically
extend your network’s security to your endpoints to ensure comprehensive
and consistent security enforcement. The GlobalProtect™ Host Information Profile
(HIP) feature enables you to collect information about the security
status of your endpoints—such as whether they have the latest security
patches and antivirus definitions installed, whether they have disk
encryption enabled, whether the endpoint is jailbroken or rooted,
or whether it is running specific software you require within your
organization—and base the decision as to whether to allow or deny
access to a specific host based on adherence to the host policies
you define.