Gideon Technologies, a company that develops network solutions, has announced that it has secured a federal, department-wide contract with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide software for automated compliance with the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) guidelines.

 

Eleven HHS agencies will utilize SecureFusion, a Secure Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) compliant, automated network scanning, measurement and reporting solution developed by Gideon, under this contract.

 

SecureFusion collects accurate measurement data and aggregates the data centrally for reporting, audit, and remediation to manage the scanning process across every device. Without installing any agent, SecureFusion scans the network configurations and continually measures enterprise-wide compliance, and rapidly discovers all assets, including previously unknown devices. Finally, the solution provides overview reports and all details of asset, configuration, and policy compliance from a single portal.

 

The solution provides private and public sector organizations with actionable data to compare against corporate and government standards or guidelines, by offering them real-time visualization of every network-attached asset along with risk profile, enabling metrics and prioritization for remediation or mitigation.

 

After rigorous laboratory testing, SecureFusion was validated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for its SCAP and FDCC configuration and policy management capabilities. Apart from this, the solution has won certifications for FDCC and Secure Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), a method applying standards for automated vulnerability management, measurement, and policy compliance evaluation.

 

The FDCC standard is mandated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), so that compliance across government systems can be ensured. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposes and approves the FDCC, which increases endpoint security while streamlining system configuration, application maintenance, and minimizing information security vulnerabilities.

 

Kenneth Halley, president and chief executive officer of Gideon Technologies, said that SecureFusion software provided by the company is the only agentless, SCAP-compliant solution that is sufficiently scalable to handle a desktop network environment the size of HHS.

 

Kevin Lancaster, a managing partner at The Winvale Group, a company that facilitated Gideon's relationship with federal agencies by streamlining the GSA (News - Alert) schedule submission, bidding and contracting, commented that the company is impressed with the ability of Gideon Technologies to meet the critical need for automated FDCC compliance monitoring at HHS.