MANDIANT, a leading provider of incident response management services and solutions, upgraded their free MANDIANT First Response software today, providing information security professionals with an effective toolkit for collecting and analyzing critical data following a suspected computer incident.  In addition to numerous user interface enhancements, performance upgrades, and bug fixes, version 1.1 adds Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support to encrypt network communications and provides "zero click" authentication management among MANDIANT First Response components.

MANDIANT First Response provides the ability to remotely collect the volatile data that allows organizations to perform precision strike responses when an incident occurs. Information from file listings, system registries, running processes and services, event logs, and many other data sources can now be centrally gathered and rapidly reviewed to validate a computer security event. Additionally, MANDIANT First Response provides analysts with rapid report generation and data export features, streamlining coordination between incident responders. The intended users of the software are information security staff, investigators and forensic professionals.

"With over 1,000 downloads of our free tool and counting, we are extremely pleased with the mass adoption that we are witnessing," stated Dave Merkel, Vice President of Products at MANDIANT.  "We firmly believe incident responders need better software that puts live response and analysis capabilities at their fingertips."

The software is comprised of a deployable agent that gathers relevant forensic data from target systems and a centralized console for command, control, and analysis functions. Data acquisitions can be performed locally or via a network connection, providing investigators with the necessary flexibility to conduct forensic operations in a variety of environments. MANDIANT First Response is available for Windows 2000, 2003, and XP systems.

To download a free version of MANDIANT First Response v.1.1, please visit www.mandiant.com.

MANDIANT is an information security company with offices in the Washington, DC area and New York City. We provide professional services, education and products for major corporations, government agencies, financial institutions and law firms. With extensive experience in the military, intelligence, law enforcement and the private sector, MANDIANT's security consultants are specialists in incident response, computer forensics, network security, application security, and training. To learn more about MANDIANT, please visit www.mandiant.com.