Microsoft, Cisco join forces on security

Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. today announced they will make their security architectures interoperable to keep out viruses, worms and other network threats.

Cisco's Network Admission Control program will share application programming interfaces and protocols with Microsoft's Network Access Protection architecture to gauge the policy compliance of PCs, servers and handheld computers joining or attempting to access a network.

Jayshree Ullal, a senior Cisco vice president, said her company is "giving Microsoft a license to evaluate the Cisco NAC wire protocol for use as part of the Microsoft quarantine system, and Microsoft is giving Cisco a license to evaluate the Microsoft NAP client and server APIs."

Cisco last week announced a similar interoperability venture with IBM Corp., which sells the Tivoli Compliance Manager.