Tom wrote in to the handlers list today and asked a question that I think our readers can help with (especially since we've gotten so many great ideas from the diary asking for suggestions for Cyber Security Month).  He is looking for tools to allow for more proactive monitoring of his systems, but given shrinking budgets (he works in government, but the situation isn't much better anywhere else), he's looking for something free or, at least, inexpensive. What are you using to monitor patch status? application versions? A/V? behavior? strange files? network devices? anything else?  Is it centrally managed?  Does it scale?

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Jim Clausing, jclausing --at-- isc [dot] sans (dot) org
FOR408 Computer Forensics Essentials coming to central OH in Sept, see http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=22353