Re: Rapid7 NeXpose

["Ferris, Joe" <jferris () ADMIN FSU EDU>]

No kidding Joel, glad to be in the Southeast.  I have never had the over
aggressive sales call but then again we have been using NeXpose for
about three years now.  Our experiences with Rapid7 have been positive,
we can always reach a live person and they were more than willing to
work with us on any issue or suggestions we have.  We have been working
with their company to enhance NeXpose (some other .edu's do this also)
and many of our suggestions have been included in their product
upgrades.  We have a fairly large deployment of their solution and it
continues to grow each week.

One of the keys for success here is that we do not normally have any
issues with false positives.  This has built up credibility for our
program over time and we fight less about if a found vulnerability is
really there or not.

The delegation of roles, responsibility and access have been another key
to our deployment.  With our incredibly decentralized environment it
would be impossible for us to administer and remediate all devices
ourselves so we work with the Sysadmins on campus to distribute the
workload.  This also allows our relatively small security team to
oversee the project and campus vulnerabilities at a higher level and the
ability to dig into details as needed.  We still work with the local
technical support but the day-to-day remediation is taken care of by the
department.  Scans are scheduled, access is delegated, email results and
reports are sent... when implemented properly it can be a real asset for
your team and university.

I have not used the Rapid7 hosted scanning solution because we have
always run this internally.  I have never used Qualys so I cannot
compare and contrast this time around.  If you have any other questions
please let me know.

Regards,

Joe Ferris
FSU IT Security Team


> -----Original Message-----
> From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
> [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Joel Rosenblatt
> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:37 AM
> To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Rapid7 NeXpose
>
> Wow .. I guess I'm lucky to be living in the east :-)
>
> Joel
>
> --On Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:38 AM -0500 Dick Jacobson
> <Dick.Jacobson () NDUS NODAK EDU> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, Joel Rosenblatt wrote:
> >
> > ... and in the middle of the country.  Their rep would not schedule
a
> web demo until I gave her the name, address and phone number of the
> person with final
> > approval AND the person that would sign the check.
> >
> > The product looked ok but after the sales experience I had a hard
> time viewing the company with an open mind.
> > > Apparently, that depends of which coast your on .. the west coast
> sales
> > > people are much more aggressive - at least according to our east
> coast
> > > representatives :-)
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> > > --On Wednesday, June 24, 2009 3:28 PM -0500 Curt Wilson
> <curtw () SIU EDU>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Watch out for the aggressive sales team though, they push too
hard.
> > > > Joel Rosenblatt wrote:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > We own their product and use it internally - we have never used
> their
> > > > > external service.
> > > > >
> > > > > We are happy with this product and find it very useful.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > Joel Rosenblatt
> > > > >
> > > > > Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
> > > > > Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
> > > > > Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854
> 3033
> > > > > http://www.columbia.edu/~joel
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --On Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:24 PM -0400 "Axworthy, Heather"
> > > > > <haxworthy () UMASSP EDU> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Hi all,
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > We are in the middle of evaluating vulnerability scanning tools.
> I
> > > > > > recently had a demo of Rapid7's NeXpose tool.  Just curious if
> there are
> > > > > > any other institutions that currently use it and if it met your
> scanning
> > > > > > needs.  We are looking at their SaaS model for external
scanning.
> > > > > > We are also in the middle of evaluating Qualys and was also
> wondering if
> > > > > > anyone out there did a comparison between the two products.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Again, any information would be greatly appreciated.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Please feel free to reply off list.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Heather
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  :: Heather Axworthy, Lead Security Specialist
> > > > > > :: University Information Technology Services (UITS)
> > > > > > :: University of Massachusetts President's Office
> > > > > > :: 774.455.7762 Phone
> > > > > >
> > > > > > :: 774.455.7733 Fax
> > > > > > :: haxworthy () umassp edu <mailto:haxworthy () umassp edu>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > University of Massachusetts : 333 South St. : Suite 400 :
> Shrewsbury, MA
> > > > > > 01545 : www.massachusetts.edu <http://www.massachusetts.edu/>
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
> > > > > Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
> > > > > Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854
> 3033
> > > > > http://www.columbia.edu/~joel
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Curt Wilson
> > > > SIUC IT Security Officer & Security Engineer
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
> > > Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
> > > Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854
3033
> > > http://www.columbia.edu/~joel
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> > Dick Jacobson                       e-mail :
Dick.Jacobson () ndus NoDak edu
> > NDUS IT Security Officer    office : STTC 219
> >             phone  : 701-231-6280 <NEW phone number>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> >
>
>
>
> Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
> Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
> Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854 3033
> http://www.columbia.edu/~joel