Vendor Provided Validation Details - Secutor Prime 2.0.4
The following text was provided by the vendor during testing to describe how the product implements the specific capabilities.

Statement of FDCC Compliance:
ThreatGuard asserts that their Secutor Prime v2.0.4 product does not alter the FDCC settings on Windows XP and Vista systems.

Statement of SCAP Implementation:
Secutor Prime is built around support for the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP). SCAP is a collection of six open standards developed jointly by the government and private sector. Security content written to the SCAP standard can by used by any product that supports the standard. This allows regulatory authorities and configuration managers a means to construct much more definitive guidance than was possible in the past. The guidance is written in the standard format and passed to security products for automated processing and reporting; common input and common output. Secutor Prime includes support for all six protocols. It uses the XCCDF and OVAL assessment protocols to determine what items to check and how to check them. It uses the CPE, CCE, CVSS, and CVE reference protocols to ensure all rules are accurately and appropriately reflected in the system. The SCAP standard references are visible in the interface, reports, and export files.

Statement of CVE Implementation:
Secutor Prime includes support for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) names. CVE provides standardized references to known vulnerabilities. This unique identifier provides a common way to refer to vulnerabilities. CVE is the oldest of the six protocols and is directed at vulnerabilities rather than compliance items. Patch content can optionally refer to CVE names, allowing the end user to track attack vectors associated with missing patches. The XCCDF and OVAL compliance checks currently do not reference CVE names. Secutor Prime raises the CVE references from the SCAP patch content to populate the user interface and reports. The CVE name is included on the Details tab of Secutor Prime for each patch check listed in the tree. Secutor Prime can also perform vulnerability assessments using the included Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL) content. The References tab includes the CVE name and a link to the NVD site for each CVE name.

Statement of CCE Implementation:
Secutor Prime includes support for Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE) references. CCE provides a standard notation and reference to configuration settings. The SCAP data stream contains CCE tags in the XCCDF documents. ThreatGuard raises the CCE references from the SCAP content to populate user interfaces, reports, and exports. In addition, Secutor Prime includes a search feature that allows the user to search the system and results for a given CCE number. By including CCE references in the SCAP content and consuming them into Secutor Prime, it is now possible to easily compare very specific configuration settings across systems. Exports provided by the Secutor line of products include the ThreatGuard Results (Tiger) format. This format was developed to insulate integrators from the intricacies and evolutions of the SCAP languages. Each configuration check includes the CCE reference, enabling the integrator to easily process SCAP data properly. Tiger was designed to give any product a fast track to SCAP compatibility and validation; CCE is a key ingredient.

Statement of CPE Implementation:
Secutor Prime includes automated support for the Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) standard. CPE provides a standard notation and reference to operating systems and applications. An operating system can be referred to in many different ways such as "Windows XP" vs. "Microsoft Windows XP". CPE introduces a standard notation, such as "cpe:/o:microsoft:windows_xp" and "cpe:/a:microsoft:ie:7", enabling products to share SCAP results without pre-coordinating operating system and application references. The SCAP data stream provides OVAL-based checks that precisely determine whether or not a benchmark applies to a network asset. Compatible tools can use these tests to decide whether or not to assess a benchmark; they can also use this check to filter the list of available benchmarks for a selected network asset. Secutor Prime executes the CPE check to automatically select benchmarks that are applicable to a target system. The user simply points Secutor Prime at a directory of SCAP content files and the product performs CPE checks to determine which benchmarks apply. The Secutor Prime report and export files also include the applicable operating system or application CPE reference.

Statement of CVSS Implementation:
Secutor Prime provides support for the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). CVSS represents a standardized approach to measuring the impacts of IT vulnerabilities. Each CVE includes an associated CVSS vector for use in calculating the relative severity of vulnerabilities. The SCAP data stream currently uses a flat scoring methodology, giving all compliance checks the same "weight" (level of importance). These weights are compatible with CVSS scoring. NIST, through their National Vulnerability Database (NVD), plans to include CVSS vectors and scores for each CCE compliance item. That will enable Secutor Prime to provide a more informative view of the relative impact of mis-configuration issues. Likewise, the Secutor libraries include a CVSS calculator which can be used to calculate a score (from 0 to 10) given a CVSS vector. The references tab in Secutor Prime also includes links to the NVD to view the CVSS vectors, giving the user access to the online CVSS calculator hosted at NIST. As CVSS grows to play a larger role in SCAP, ThreatGuard products stand ready to support.

Statement of XCCDF Implementation:
Secutor Prime includes seamless support for the eXtensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF). XCCDF specifies system settings for automated tools to assess. XCCDF specifies what to check. It is the primary protocol required to process the SCAP data stream. ThreatGuard presented the first live demonstration of processing XCCDF, OVAL, and the SCAP data stream using Secutor Prime at the 2nd annual NIST Security Automation Conference, held September 2006. The Secutor XCCDF interpreting engine has been exercised by thousands of users in hundreds of Federal Agencies, hundreds of commercial sites, and over fifty countries. Compliance checklist content, like those developed by NIST for the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC), is written in the standard XCCDF format. These files are included with Secutor Prime and are used by the product to generate the groups and lists of rules to be checked. Secutor Prime generates and displays a hierarchical tree of these groups and rules when an XCCDF file is selected. The product then uses information from the XCCDF file to perform the assessment as specified in the accompanying Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL) file.

Statement of OVAL Implementation:
Secutor Prime includes fully integrated support for the Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL) standard. OVAL specifies a standardized approach for assessing each system setting. While XCCDF describes what to check, OVAL specifies how to perform the check. ThreatGuard develops and distributes the world's most mature commercial OVAL interpreter. From 2004 to present day, ThreatGuard has been the first to fulfill OVAL definition consumer compatibility requirements with each major evolution of the language. The ThreatGuard OVAL interpreter was engineered from the beginning to assess local computers and remote targets using agentless 'over the wire' technology. This OVAL interpreter currently supports Microsoft Windows, as well as Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, and Cisco IOS. Support for additional operating systems and applications, such as mainframes and databases, will be added as new OVAL content is developed. Secutor Prime automatically processes the OVAL definition content as referenced in the XCCDF file to perform assessment activities. Secutor Prime also includes an OVAL Notes tab that allows the user to see the decisions made by the interpreter as it processes the OVAL content. For vulnerability content, Secutor Prime includes an option to display the OVALID in the tree as the title for each vulnerability definition.