A survey by Opine Consulting revealed nearly half of the IT professionals who responded had endpoints connecting to their corporate networks without their knowledge. Yet compared to other security issues, 86 percent of respondents said controlling network access ranked as a high priority. The survey, commissioned by Mirage Networks, reported that network access control solutions are gaining traction vs. more perimeter security technologies to address the problem.

The survey analysis shows that IT departments of all sizes have serious concerns about controlling network access. Many respondents did not believe their organizations focused network access policies on the greatest areas of business risk.

A summary of the key findings from the study include:

• 86 percent of respondents indicated that controlling network access was very important or important compared to other security issues
• 45 percent of respondents were not confident or only somewhat confident they know of every endpoint that connects to their network
• 43 percent are either unsure or do not believe their organization focuses their network access policies and controls on the greatest areas of business risks to their organization
• For those respondents with plans to deploy Microsoft NAP, the most common security solutions to integrate with are NAC (69 percent) followed by intrusion detection/prevention (55 percent)
• 87 percent of respondents indicated standards are important or very important in deploying a Network Access Control (NAC) solution
• More than half of respondents (51 percent) are concerned about job loss in the case of a security breach on their network.

While Microsoft NAP deployments seem to be slowed by complexity and lack of Microsoft Vista adoption, another key finding of the survey indicates that NAC solutions are recognized by IT professionals as a complementary solution to NAP and may actually increase NAP adoption. Full-cycle NAC solutions offer coverage for non-Windows endpoints and provide ongoing threat detection that supplements Microsoft NAP’s pre-admission checks.