CS1803

product review
TITANIA PAWS STUDIO 3.2.2
SMEs daunted by data protection
regulations and the looming
GDPR (General Data Protection
Regulation) can rest easy with Titania's
Paws Studio. Very keenly priced, it's
capable of auditing all Windows,
macOS and Linux systems, and offers
an impressive range of highly detailed
regulatory compliance and vulnerability
reports.
This latest version delivers a wealth
of new features, as, along with report
modules for SANS, NSA, NERC, STIG
and OVAL, it supports the PCI-DSS 3.2
standard. It now audits to the CIS
benchmark requirements and Cyber
Essentials best practices guidelines,
plus Titania includes a DCPP module
in the Enterprise version.
Paws Studio supports any host system
running Windows 7 upwards, macOS
Sierra or Linux. We loaded it on a
Windows Server 2012 R2 host and had
it licensed and ready for action in five
minutes.
The supported device list for auditing is
equally impressive and includes Windows
10 workstations. Furthermore, businesses
still running legacy Windows XP, Vista or
Server 2003 systems (and there's plenty
that are) can use Paws Studio to ensure
they aren't a major security risk.
On first contact, we could see the
console had received a design refresh,
making it even easier to use. Creating
a new audit was simple, as we chose
compliance modules from the list
presented or created our own custom
policies and applied them to selected
systems.
We could choose local and remote
target systems, and options are provided
for manually adding devices, running
a network discovery, scanning an IP
address range or importing multiple
systems from a CSV file. And that's all
there is to do, as Paws Studio now gets
on with auditing the systems.
It pushes a small footprint Data
Collector to each system, which gathers
the relevant information and sends it
back to the host for report creation.
For isolated systems, you can export
the Data Collector tool, along with the
required audit policies, run it locally and
import the results back into the host.
Paws Studio is quick, too, as a report
combining Cyber Essentials, SANS
and NERC audits on four networked
Windows 10 workstations took less
than a minute. The console displays
the completed report in the centre and
right-hand panes, making it even easier
to see which checks were passed or
which failed.
For our workstations, we could see
immediately from the SANS audit that,
although they all had anti-virus
protection, users were allowed to install
software on them, and our password
length and complexity policies were lax
at best. Choose an entry with a red
cross next to it in the right-hand pane
and it'll be loaded in the central pane,
along with details of why the check
failed and sage advice on remedial
action.
Yet another new feature is the option
to clear a failure from a report after
you've remedied the issue, so you don't
have to run the whole audit again.
Reports can be saved off, as Paws Studio
'blueprints' are exported to the host's
default web browser or saved in a range
of formats, including HTML, XML and
CSV - there's even an option to export
just the report page being viewed.
Along with accurate OS identification,
the Data Collector delivers detailed
hardware and software inventory.
Choose a system in the report and you
can view its BIOS version, CPU, memory,
hard disks, network adapters, installed
software, running programs and indeed
a whole lot more.
SMEs that want tight security and
compliance with the latest data
protection regulations will find Titania's
Paws Studio an ideal partner. It's very
easy to use, capable of delivering highly
detailed audit reports for a raft of
regulations and beats enterprise
solutions hands down on price. CS
Product: Paws Studio 3.2.2
Supplier: Titania Ltd
Telephone: +44 (0)1905 888785
Web site: www.titania.com
Price: 25 devices/3 years, £791 ex VAT
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