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WatchGuard Extends Firewall Capabilities to Mainstream BusinessesJul 21, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- WatchGuard Technologies, a company focused on business security solutions, announced that it is extending its enterprise-class, next-generation firewall capabilities to mainstream businesses with the latest release of the next-generation XTM 8 Series family of multifunction security appliances. The Company said this move now extends WatchGuard's next-generation firewall (NGFW) capabilities, which includes firewalling, Application Control, and intrusion prevention system (IPS), to mainstream business networks. Built for speed, the WatchGuard next-generation XTM 8 Series delivers up to 5Gbps firewall throughput, making it ideal for demanding networks of 1,000 to 5,000 users. With Application Control and IPS activated, the XTM 8 Series achieves a faster-than-line-speed 1.2Gbps throughput, which represents a major leap forward for next-generation firewalls in delivering high security without compromising network performance. Leveraging WatchGuard's "defense-in-depth" firewall technology, which includes stateful packet inspection, packet inspection and WatchGuard's proprietary proxy technology, the XTM 8 Series embodies the in-depth security technologies to protect business networks. With its built in application proxies, the WatchGuard XTM 8 Series natively stops a myriad of blended threats, fragmented and malformed packet attacks, spyware, malware, denial of service and many other types of threats and attacks. "Until now, next-generation firewalls were available only to enterprise organizations," said Roger Klorese, Director of Product Management at WatchGuard Technologies. "By extending next-generation firewall capabilities to the WatchGuard XTM 8 Series, businesses of all sizes can now leverage advanced firewalling, Application Control and integrated IPS. This gives businesses the latest tools to keep their data, applications and networks safe while maintaining control over social media and Web 2.0 applications." With WatchGuard Application Control, businesses now gain in-depth, granular control over Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and hundreds more. Not only does WatchGuard Application Control protect against the next-generation of threats that leverage these applications, now businesses can rein in how individual employees use such applications, directly from the corporate firewall. According to a release, WatchGuard Application Control enables the firewall to identify and control nearly 2,000 web 2.0 and social media applications. This level of control gives businesses new found freedom to align business needs with IT and security policies. By doing so, businesses gain greater efficiencies and productivity, and administrators gain visibility and control over applications traversing their networks. Additionally, the WatchGuard XTM 8 Series offers protection against threats that attempt to hide in encrypted HTTPS data streams. By way of WatchGuard's HTTPS proxy technology that intercepts, scans and rebuilds HTTPS data streams, administrators can now accurately audit, report and protect users from receiving dangerous file types. With a projected annual growth rate of more than 20 percent, VoIP represents a threat vector in commercial networks. Because of this, threats such as DoS attacks on VoIP networks, directory harvesting, and "vishing" attacks are increasing in popularity. Unlike other next-generation firewalls that merely provide network address translation to obscure a VoIP system, the WatchGuard XTM 8 Series provides application-level security for SIP and H.323 protocols. These security capabilities conceal business VoIP systems and simultaneously harden them to repel directory harvesting attacks, input validation hacks (buffer overflows), and other VoIP threats. The Company noted that Botnets hijacked computers containing malware applications are also concerns and liabilities for businesses. Because many botnets use the same protocols used for legitimate business applications, such as instant messaging, administrators are faced with limited options eliminate IM or risk botnet infection, loss of resources and control. With the WatchGuard XTM 8 Series, administrators can rest assured by having both the convenience of IM and the protection from botnets. The appliances provide application inspection as well as port and protocol identification to ensure application traffic is valid and safe. Additionally, the WatchGuard HTTPS inspection works in tandem with IM and P2P application blocking, which foils even those bots that use encryption to evade detection. WatchGuard Technologies is a technology company focused on business security solutions, providing mission-critical protection to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. More information: www.watchguard.com ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) |