network security appliance

WatchGuard Dimension Wins Best New Product & Channel Program Awarded 5-Star Rating by CRN

You may have noticed earlier in the week, WatchGuard Dimension was recognized by the Network Computing Awards as the Best New Product of the Year, and was a runner up for Best Product of the Year. This award was voted on by the readers of Network Computing, and last year there was more than 17,000 votes cast.

Released in late 2013, the cloud-based, zero-install Dimension has take the network security market by storm. By helping customers around the world (including Synerzip, Kiosko, Carol Morgan and Oasis Technologies) turn oceans of network data into real-time security intelligence, WatchGuard is bringing big data visibility to network security, without the associated cost or complexity. (You can read the entire press release here.)

In addition to the Network Computing Awards, and on the heals of Alex Thurber, WatchGuard’s vice president of sales, recently being named one of CRN’s 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs, WatchGuard was also awarded a 5-Star Rating in CRN‘s 2014 Partner Program Guide.

The rating recognizes an elite subset of companies that offer solution providers the best partner elements in the channel programs. To determine the 5-Star recipients, CRN’s research team assessed each vendor’s application based on investment in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support and communication.

The guide will be featured on CRN.com and will be highlighted in the April issue of CRN. To read more, click here.

The Difference Between UTM and NGFW

I got a call from a potential customer the other day while driving in the car with my family.  After listening to the flood of TLAs (three letter acronyms) in the conversation, my daughter asked me what all that alphabet soup meant.  Many customers wonder the same thing.  What is DLP (data loss prevention) and why do you need it?  Is IPS (intrusion prevention system) the same as APT (advanced persistent threat) and which one should you use?  And so on.  One of the biggest questions we hear is “what is NGFW (next generation firewall) and how is it different from UTM (unified threat management.)  The real answer is that it isn’t as different as you might think.  Let me explain.

UTM was born in SMB (small-to-midsized business.)  It usually refers to a single box with multiple security technologies running on it (1). SMBs love it because it’s drop-dead simple to deploy and gives them every security feature they need in a single platform.  NGFW is a subset of functionality, typically only 2 or 3 of the modules running on a single box.  Yet, although it is less functional, many larger corporations tend to prefer to break up technology by location – they prefer to deliberately architect their security solutions to put the required security appliance close to the item it is protecting.  E.g. the IPS belongs at the perimeter, but A/V and SPAM filtering belong next to the email server, etc.

Regardless of company size, and certainly regardless of which solution people choose, UTM or NGFW, WatchGuard is a very strong believer in unifying multiple scan engines onto a single box.  It just makes sense.  You needn’t pay for additional hardware, OS licenses, maintenance contracts, etc.  In addition, it gives you the best chance of combatting today’s multi-vectored threats.  Rather than keeping security tools in silos, with a different box / console / policy for each one, unify your security into the form factor that makes the most sense.

Perhaps the promise of lower operating costs combined with increased levels of security is what’s driving the growth in the integrated security market right now.  Leading analyst firm IDC tracks the growth of the UTM market specifically at more than 13% this year.  That’s the single highest growth rate in the network security market.  When that many customers vote with their dollars, euros, pesos, and baht, WatchGuard notices and works even harder to give you the tools you need to succeed.

1. Gateway antivirus, SPAM blocking, URL filtering, Intrusion Prevention, Data Loss Prevention, Reputation Authority, etc.

Introducing the lean, mean content security machine

As goes the Internet, so goes security for the content it carries: throughput is king. As the volume of email and the amount of information it carries continues to increase exponentially, vendors like WatchGuard need to deliver more performance in our enterprise content security solutions.

Sure, we could add more cores and more hard disk space. But bigger isn’t always better; instead of building a fire-breathing monster, we opted for a different approach. Today we are announcing a leaner, meaner security solution for email (and web) content: the WatchGuard XCS 880. Delivering 20 percent more processing power, twice the email throughput per dollar, and all of the redundancy you need for non-stop security, while consuming less than half the energy of previous models – the WatchGuard XCS 880 combines power and efficiency in a slim 1U profile.

Smaller, lighter, less expensive to power and to cool – the XCS 880 is another proof point of our Best of Breed security appliance strategy. You can take advantage of the performance curve our processor partner, Intel, provides generation after generation – and instead of having to maintain your own operating system, install and configure lots of separate security products from different vendors and manage them from separate interfaces, you get one integrated solution managed from a single pane of glass.

To learn more about the XCS 880 and the full suite of XCS solutions, visit the WatchGuard XCS 880 page.

XTM 330 Review: Sophisticated Network Security

PCPro recently reviewed our XTM 330 Network Security Appliance and we’re pleased to say that they’ve put it on their “Recommended A-List.”

The XTM 330 network security appliance provides a suite of flexible, integrated management tools designed to help small and mid-sized businesses stay in control of their network. It includes the Pro version of Fireware XTM operating system, which includes VLAN support, multi-WAN load balancing, and dynamic routing. Add in real-time monitoring and deep reporting at no additional cost and the XTM 330 is terrific value!

In the words of PCPro…

WatchGuard already lays claim to a sizable chunk of the SMB network security market, but with its latest multifunction appliance it wants even more. In this exclusive review we look at the new XTM 330, which offers impressive performance and strong features for a surprisingly low price.

To see video testimonials and see how our XTM network security appliances stack up to the competition, check out our YouTube Channel.

Network Security – 5 Reasons Hackers Want into Your Network (Besides Data)

© Galinka86 | Dreamstime.com

You’re not the Pentagon. Or Microsoft. Or NASA, Wells Fargo, AOL Time Warner, or Daimler Chrysler. You’re not even headquarters for a burger franchise.

No, you’re just part of a small- or medium-sized enterprise (SME), perhaps even a home-based business with enough employees to count on one hand. You may not even be thinking about network security. After all, there are a gajillion companies in the world larger and more affluent than yours, so they’d be more logical targets for a hacker, right? After all, what does your network have that any e-punk would want? Well, here are five reasons hackers want into your network, besides data…

• Hacking isn’t personal. The Internet is not a school yard. No one is going to push your network security around because you wear ugly glasses or momma packs your lunch with chocolate cake every day. Typically, you’ll be a random victim, the poor kid who happened to be on the wrong playground toy at the wrong time.

The first step in a hack attack is to test for vulnerability. This is usually done with a “scanner,” a commonly available application that queries thousands of arbitrary Internet addresses, hunting for any network with open ports through which a hacker can easily enter. Imagine a burglar sneaking down your street at 3:00 AM, trying every front door, looking for one that’s unlocked. If you get robbed, it’s not personal. You just made it easy — you didn’t lock your door.

• Hackers want your computing power. Once inside your network, the hacker has free reign, but odds are he didn’t come looking for credit card numbers, trade secrets, or incriminating pictures from last year’s besotted Christmas bash. Instead, the hacker can make use of much more plentiful, ubiquitous resources.

First among these are your CPU cycles, the processing horsepower in each computer on your network. With 15 PCs and a high-speed Net connection, Corporate Health Systems came to WatchGuard Technologies for help after persistent hacks had enslaved the company’s network for one purpose: to help the hacker win an encryption-cracking contest.

A WatchGuard network security appliance instantly solved Corporate Health Systems’ hacking problem. Just the same, being roped unknowingly into such “distributed computing” applications poses a serious risk to any company, in part because most such attacks keep a low enough profile as to be unnoticeable.

• Hackers want your connection bandwidth. Just as your CPU bandwidth can be commandeered for illicit processing tasks, your Internet connection bandwidth can be hijacked and used to damage other businesses. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks involve numerous computers bombarding an Internet server with data, overloading it and causing the server to stall or crash. Hackers don’t want their exploits to point back at their own machines, so they enslave other computers, turning them into “zombies,” forcing them to attack in concert.

• Hackers want your (or your computer’s) identity. Hackers can abuse your identity in several ways. A hacker might use your machine as a relay, a bouncing-off point from which to probe for weaknesses in other networks: Some network admin notices unauthorized activity in the accounting files, works with the police to trace the intrusion back to your PC, and the hacker waltzes away with a smile. Similarly, the hacker would much rather have you do his port scanning than his own machine. You might also be one in a chain of relays.

If a hacker can learn your name and e-mail address — not a particularly hard feat — he’s at liberty to change his mail, news, and chat settings to impersonate you. He might send death threats to an ex-boss under your name. He might raid your contacts list and then pretend to be you while asking vendors for information about your order history, including the account numbers used to pay invoices. If the masked hacker slanders your competitors in a newsgroup, you could be faced with trying to clear yourself in court.

• Hackers will hack you just for the practice. Or you may become a guinea pig. Hackers stake their reputations on “owning,” or seizing control of, prestigious companies’ servers. But even established hackers begin as novices, and learning the ropes of deception and destruction inside your company’s humble network is as good a place to start as any.

Be sure to take advantage of network security solutions and protect yourself and network. There’s too much at risk in today’s business environment to ignore hackers.