Cisco will announce availability of its Network Admission Control security technology for Cisco routers this week and lay out a road map for adding NAC capabilities to its lines of LAN switches.

These technologies coupled with the fact that later this year the company plans to offer NAC to standards bodies and other vendors could lead to automated network security on every desktop, preventing PCs from spreading harmful traffic.

But with the most critical phase of NAC - LAN switch support - and standardization plans not due out until early 2005, some observers say Cisco is not meeting users' immediate security needs. Also, enterprise users say a standards-based technology is needed sooner for securing LANs and WANs.

By Phil Hochmuth at Network World Fucion.

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