Secure Computing introduces industry's first reputation-based firewall Sidewinder 7.0 in the Middle East

In addition to the integration of the TrustedSource reputation technology, Sidewinder 7.0 includes significant enhancements for performance, policy management and overall security. Sidewinder 7.0 will be available in the Middle East from March 2007.

As part of Secure Computing's vision to provide comprehensive enterprise gateway security, Sidewinder 7.0 incorporates global intelligence from the company's industry-leading reputation system, TrustedSource. Like a credit agency provides credit scores to enable reliable commerce, TrustedSource provides reputation scores for IPs, domains and URLs. Using this real-time scoring, Sidewinder 7.0 allows organisations to drop connections from malicious sources in order to prevent security threats such as spam and phishing, reclaim bandwidth and reduce downstream server processing.

"There are many unified threat management and firewall products on the market. However, there is a difference between products that provide basic protection versus those that deliver a complete solution," said Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC. "By incorporating a robust global reputation service directly into its offerings, Secure Computing provides that comprehensive layer of protection. As enterprises realize there are many malicious IP senders, they are also recognizing that identifying these bad IP addresses is vital to overall security."

Enterprises use Sidewinder to manage access to their networks and protect Internet-facing applications, as well as to monitor and manage employee use of the Internet, identify hidden attacks in packet streams, block viruses in file transfers, and create a forensic-quality audit trail to assist with regulatory compliance and reporting.

In addition to the TrustedSource integration, key enhancements to Sidewinder 7.0 include: Fastest application layer security performance in the industry; Next-generation hardware platforms - Sidewinder 7.0's 64-bit architecture includes Intel dual-core technology for high performance and scalability. Sidewinder 7.0 also delivers the first rugged appliance delivered for military and heavy industrial applications; Best-in-class unified policy management: Sidewinder 7.0's flexible and unified policy manager provides customers granular control in a point-and-click manner resulting in an easy-to-use platform and improved security; and Advancements in VoIP (voice over IP) security: Sidewinder 7.0 provides application-based VoIP security using deep application awareness and control (for example, over VoIP's Session Initiation Protocol) to protect from new threats created as VoIP solutions become more widely adopted in the enterprise environment.

"The availability of Sidewinder 7.0 in the Middle East will be a welcome development for the region's business community as organisations can no longer sit back and rely solely on reactive technologies to keep looming threats outside of the network," said Sami Mulla, Director, Middle East, Secure Computing. "Security needs to be multi-layered with integrated, best-of-breed offerings, such as what Secure Computing is doing across the enterprise gateway. We are confident that reputation will be critical in ensuring organisations are protected as threats dynamically evolve. With the TrustedSource integration, Sidewinder 7.0 delivers the most comprehensive set of security services in a single perimeter UTM appliance."

Secure Computing is incorporating its TrustedSource reputation technology into its complete line of enterprise gateway security offerings, which include Web, Messaging and Network gateway appliances. In addition to Sidewinder 7.0, the company also announced the launch and availability of Webwasher 6.5, the industry's most comprehensive Web gateway security offering.