WatchGuard claims new firewall standards with latest release

Gordon Peters
Wednesday, 20 October 2010 01:17

IT Industry - Market

Security solutions vendor, WatchGuard Technologies, boldly claims to have raised the bar of what constitutes a firewall by unveiling its application control, which it says gives users new ability to control Web 2.0 applications and also ushers in a 'new era of  network protection and business enablement.'

The vendor further claims that with its application control, businesses now gain in-depth, granular control over Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and hundreds more. 

Scott Robertson, ANZ regional director at WatchGuard, says that 'not only does application control protect against the next generation of threats that leverage these popular applications,' but he adds, 'now businesses can rein in how individual employees use such applications, directly from the corporate firewall.'

According to Robertson, by leveraging more than 2,300 unique application signatures, application control enables the firewall to identify and control more than 1,500 applications, and he maintains that 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 improved productivity, and administrators gain unprecedented visibility and control over applications traversing their networks.'

Robertson observes that the explosion of new applications entering business networks creates havoc for administrators who need to protect business assets while simultaneously needing to support 'agile and efficient work environments.'

'For example, many organisations today may want to allow Facebook use for some people, but deny it for others.  With WatchGuard application control, businesses gain a better handle on reducing risks right down to individual employees and the myriad applications that those users bring into their network.'

Robertson points out that with WatchGuard application control, administrators can select which applications to control from 13 major categories. WatchGuard application control will be available with the next WatchGuard XTM OS update, WatchGuard XTM 11.4. 

'A more powerful and efficient IPS/IDS engine will give businesses even greater protection against hackers and unwanted intruders, and new authentication enhancements will empower administrators better than ever before to construct, enforce, monitor and report on security policies that are organised by users and groups rather than by IP subnets, hosts, host ranges, or network zones.'

WatchGuard XTM 11.4 is free to WatchGuard XTM customers with a current LiveSecurity service contract and available on all appliances starting from $889 excluding GST, and will be available in the fourth quarter this year.