WatchGuard sees Extensible Network Security changes

By Alan Harten

WatchGuard Technologies, network security solutions provider, today announced what it calls its ‘vision’ of taking unified threat management (UTM) to the ‘next level’ of performance, scalability, high security, investment protection and end-user choice, with the company’s threat management (XTM) and connectivity solutions.

Four years ago analyst IDC came up with the term UTM as a description of integrated network appliances that provide services such as gateway anti-virus, intrusion detection/prevention and basic firewalling.

WatchGuard has several new extensible services, including their popular LiveSecurity® Service, as well as virtual private networking (SSL VPN), advanced web (HTTP and HTTPS)

They have also carved themselves a good sized niche in the protection of telecommuters and branch offices, as well as the widespread use of the popular Firebox® X Core™ e-Series.

WatchGuard are now saying that they wish to make a jump to a new level of security features with a new series of solutions that they have dubbed XTM solutions.

They believe that a new round of security initiatives is now needed as threats are making a leap to a higher level of sophistication that is far less obvious and detectable.

According to WatchGuard these new threats are becoming far more targeted than the ‘throwing out a net and seeing what you can catch’ threats, which were prevalent a few years ago.

New threats, such as blended threats like phishing e-mails with interwoven malware payloads, are the path that the attacks are now taking and WatchGuard believes that security must now become more responsive and adaptable to deal with these new challenges.

They also believe that the solutions need to be highly adaptable to deal with as yet unknown threats, so that response times can be trimmed in the face of the ever changing types of threat encountered.

The solutions will need to have a more flexible and scalable gateway security appliance that can quickly and easily be customized or modified to meet a new threat in a flexible and adjustable manner.

They intend that their XTM solutions will, above all, be proactive to meet the threats head on, rather than taking up a defensive position in response to each individual threat.

A higher level of flexibility will mean that administrators will be in a position to more fully customise the solutions to suit their specific needs or perceived threat scenarios.

This way administrators can choose to emphasise one aspect of a solution over another by, for example, opting for a different Anti virus solution but still maintaining the XTM firewall, IPS/IPS in place.

The XTM will also allow for easy customisation by third parties to develop variations on the basic themes for far more tailor made use best suited to the individual company’s needs.

About WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.
WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1996 and has been involved in the advanced technology of network security solutions, providing mission-critical security to businesses worldwide.

The WatchGuard family of wired and wireless unified threat management appliances and WatchGuard SSL VPN remote access solutions, provide extensible network security, network visibility, management and control.

LiveSecurity(r) Service is a support, maintenance, and education program.

WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle and has offices serving North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.