Symantec Introduces Security Appliance

24 November 2004

Symantec Introduces Cost-Effective Integrated Security Appliance Designed To Protect Enterprise Remote And Branch Offices

New Firewall Appliance Line Offers Customers Six Integrated Security Functions,
Scaleable Centralised Management And Secure Wireless Access Point

Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC), the global leader in information security, today announced the Symantec Gateway Security Appliance 400 Series. This comprehensive solution provides firewall, intrusion prevention, intrusion detection, antivirus policy enforcement, content filtering, virtual private networking (VPN) and gateway networking functionality in a single, easy-to-use appliance designed for remote and branch office sites. In addition, the Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series can function as a standards-based, secure wireless LAN (WLAN) access point. Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series appliances are a key component in achieving information integrity by helping organisations better secure their networks at remote and branch office sites.

With the Symantec Security Management System and the Symantec Event Manager and Advanced Manager for Security Gateways plug-in, Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series appliances offer the appropriate tools to allow enterprise customers to centrally manage hundreds or thousands of appliances via policy-based management. The Symantec Event Manager enables centralised logging, alerting and reporting.

In addition, the Symantec Advanced Manager allows IT administrators to define rule sets and manage security policies for hundreds or even thousands of sites through a centralised console. A security manager at a central management console can define multiple groups of 400 Series appliances and, for each group, set a different security policy and configuration that can be automatically applied to all the members of the group.

“Medium and large enterprises typically have many remote or branch offices that must attach to the enterprise network infrastructure to have real-time connectivity to business applications and data,” said Richard Batchelar, country manager, Symantec New Zealand. “With its all-in-one functionality, Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series allows customers to save significant costs by using the internet to transport traffic from the remote and branch office sites to regional facilities that serve as hubs for the enterprise private network.”

Also available for all models is a wireless LAN access point add-on that allows the Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series to function as a standards-based wireless LAN access point. Customers are able to establish highly secure IPsec VPN tunnels from the wireless clients to the gateway.

With one of the biggest barriers to the adoption of WLAN technology being security, Symantec now provides customers an effective solution for deploying WLAN technology. Since any device within range can access clients on a WLAN, it is important to allow traffic only from authorised users. The WLAN option on the Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series can be used with IEEE 802.11g and IEEE 802.11b wireless clients.

Key Product Features

Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series is a security solution that provides comprehensive protection by combining essential security and networking functions:

Six Integrated Security Functions – Includes stateful inspection firewall to analyse information packets and their destinations; intrusion detection to provide comprehensive attack detection, logging and reporting; intrusion prevention to offer customers the ability to block packets that are identified as malicious; antivirus policy enforcement to automatically monitor and ensure that Symantec supported antivirus clients are up-to-date and active on workstations attempting to pass data through the gateway; content filtering to improve productivity and reduce wasted bandwidth by restricting access to unwanted internet sites; IPsec compliant VPN with hardware assisted encryption to provide secure gateway-to-gateway, client-to-gateway and WLAN–to-gateway tunnels.

Scalable, Centralised Management – Each Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series appliance comes pre-loaded and licensed for Symantec Event Manager and Advanced Manager for Security Gateways and SSL Certificates so that a central management console can manage hundreds or thousands of appliances.

Wireless LAN Access Point – An optional hardware add-on is available for all models to allow the gateway security appliance to also function as a standards-based wireless LAN access point, permitting highly secure IPsec VPN tunnels from the wireless clients to the gateway.

Easy-to-Use Networking – The built-in 10/100 Mbps Auto-Sense network switch provides local ethernet LAN switching for numerous devices that need to share the gateway connection to the external network.

LiveUpdate – Symantec’s exclusive LiveUpdate technology ensures that Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series appliances are easily kept up-to-date with the latest firmware updates.

High Availability/Bandwidth Aggregation/Load Balancing – The automatic dial backup feature included on all models (external modem required) ensures Internet connectivity in the event that the primary broadband connection(s) goes down.

Also included on the 460/460R models, dual WAN ports can simultaneously send traffic to and from the internet, with bandwidth aggregation effectively doubling internet throughput. Each WAN port can be connected to different service providers even if they each use different technologies (e.g., DSL, cable modem). In the event that a service provider’s link fails, all traffic and gateway VPN tunnels automatically switch over to the working port.

The Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series consists of multi-function firewall appliances that provide manageable security for remote and branch offices of medium to large enterprises. Designed for ease-of-use, these appliances require little technical expertise to install and operate, but offer advanced security capabilities to handle remote and branch office needs. Customers can also gain cost savings by utilising the included VPN feature to create secure connections, rather than using expensive leased lines.

Licensing and Availability

In order to accommodate varying performance needs and port configurations, the Symantec Gateway Security Appliance 400 Series will be offered in four different models (420, 440, 460 and 460R). Customers will receive 90-days of telephone support, one year of hardware warranty and firmware updates via LiveUpdate.

In an effort to reduce deployment overhead and allow scalable, centralised management out of the box, the base price of each Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series appliance includes an incremental one system licence that allows management by the Symantec Event Manager and Advanced Manager for Security Gateways.

Symantec Gateway Security 400 Series is available through Symantec’s worldwide network of value-added resellers, distributors and systems integrators. The Symantec Event Manager and Advanced Manager for Security Gateways media kit is also now available. Organisations seeking a reseller or distributor should contact Symantec at https://partnernet.symantec.com/internet/locator/Locator01.asp.

About Symantec

Symantec is the global leader in information security providing a broad range of software, appliances and services designed to help individuals, small and mid-sized businesses, and large enterprises secure and manage their IT infrastructure. Symantec’s Norton brand of products is the worldwide leader in consumer security and problem-solving solutions. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 35 countries. More information is available at http://www.symantec.com.

ENDS

© Scoop Media