The Skybox Enterprise Suite is an enterprise vulnerability assessment tool that is deployed to aid in vulnerability and threat management, as well as security policy management. It can be bought as a preconfigured hardware appliance, preconfigured VM or as a standalone software package for custom deployment. The vulnerability and threat management aspect of this device allows a continuous view of vulnerabilities on a network and provides security teams with remediation strategies to minimize risks. This is all done with the device's automated risk analytics capability, which provides security teams with information in reducing network exposure and monitoring remediation efforts. The security policy management aspect of this tool allows network security controls to be monitored and ensures that the network maintains compliance.
The Skybox View Enterprise Suite was easy to set up. After it was removed from the box, we easily installed it into our server rack using the included rack mount hardware. After that, we connected our keyboard, monitor and mouse to the back of the server and powered the device on. After the machine booted, we configured it using the built-in configuration tool. We experienced some difficulties with the network configuration, which took us some time to troubleshoot. After we confirmed the problem was not caused by our test equipment we rebooted and were able to continue. From that point on we continued without any further issues. The Skybox View Enterprise Suite is administered by a software client package that also needed to be installed. This was no more than a simple install wizard. Using the client software we imported the license and, voilà, basic configuration was complete.
The product comes with a preconfigured demo model that allowed us to test the provided mock network data. This was a useful tool that showcased a lot of the product's advanced functionality. After viewing this we integrated the device into our test network to try it out for ourselves. We then conducted vulnerability and compliance scans on our network. These results gave us in-depth information about what systems were vulnerable, which vulnerabilities were exploitable, and ways to remediate these issues. The data from these scans were dispersed into their three main dashboards: discovery, analytics and remediation. Within each of these dashboards, the in-depth ability to filter, sort and display data was useful. Another valuable aspect was its network-mapping capability, which allows for the diagram to be exported as an image or to a Vizio-compatible format. Skybox also allows for compliance policies, as well as network data information from external scanners, to be imported to the application.
The Skybox Appliance Setup Guide was streamlined and contained screen shots of the step-by-step process to get Skybox running. However, the guide does not mention the necessity to reboot the system after assigning an IP address. This was the only issue during the setup of the Skybox Appliance and all else ran smoothly afterwards. The documentation also includes a Vulnerability Control Product Tour, which gave us plenty of information on how to navigate the client software. The documentation for this device was more than enough to get this system up and running.
The Skybox View Enterprise Suite does not offer no-cost customer support. The company does provide both eight-hours-a-day/five-days-a-week and 24/7 service, though the price is calculated based on the licensing cost of the software. Several options for fee-based options are available. Phone and email support are also available at a standard or premium level.
The Skybox View Enterprise Suite is a great product. Although we experienced minor hiccups during setup, we believe it redeemed itself through its feature set. The Skybox is a great enterprise vulnerability assessment tool. Users can be confident it will prove reliabile for securing the network.
