With the recent spate of phishing attacks on many of our local banks, and the ever-increasing threat of malicious code, viruses and other nasties doing the rounds on the Internet, it`s comforting to know the SME market is not being ignored when it comes to IT security.
Many SMEs have to date been forced to avoid having adequate security for their company purely as a result of the exorbitant costs associated with purchasing, and more importantly maintaining, firewalls, anti-virus and other threat management and security-related systems.
Now, with the release of a New Zealand-based product locally in SA, there is light at the end of the tunnel for SMEs wanting to secure their company data and intellectual property in a more effective manner.
The Mako Networks line of products can best be described as a cost-effective system that provides an end-to-end network management system with security, Web content control and mail sanitisation all built into one secured box.
The system offers many significant value-adds to the SME, including:
* Automated 24 x 7 x 365 monitoring and software updates. The Mako devices have their own software proactively patched and updated immediately upon availability providing unparalleled reliability and security.
* All administration and configuration takes place remotely on the Mako Networks Central Management Servers enabling the server to be configured and managed from any Internet connection in a secure and painless manner.
* Detailed online traffic reporting, offering online reports of all traffic entering and leaving your network at any time allowing you to better control your Internet usage.
* Create inter-office VPNs at the click of a button without the need for a static IP address.
* Allow secure user access to the SME LAN from anywhere in the world using the Internet.
* Take control of your Internet access by knowing exactly what traffic leaves your network and create appropriate filters for undesirable services to be blocked (ie pornography, profanity, etc).
* Integrated anti-virus technology that will enable the blocking of viruses transported via e-mail before they have chance to enter your LAN/internal e-mail server.
The Mako Firewall is a solid-state modem/router with a stateful inspection firewall, VPN functionality and dual Ethernet LAN ports. Designed to work in conjunction with the Mako Networks Central Management System, it provides you with enterprise-level control over your connection to the Internet. The firewall can be configured in a number of ways to support ADSL, wireless broadband and standard leased line to SME businesses, meaning that this one device is essentially a Jack and Master of many trades.
The local distributor of the Mako product range, EMW South Africa, holds huge optimism that the product range will offer the SME/SOHO user a wide range of useful services that were traditionally out of reach to anyone without a substantial IT security budget.
"While many of the local ISPs offer tailor-made solutions to the SME/SOHO business clients, we believe we have one of the only `drop the box and go` solutions. Everything the client, and for that matter the ISP, needs from a security perspective is available in one easy to use and manage server," says Stuart Harrison, Technical Sales Manager for EMW South Africa.
"We believe the Mako firewall, or rather `Mako security device`, will truly revolutionise the way that SMEs approach business and network information security as well as offer our local ISPs a quick, cost-effective, revenue generating security solution they can install within their client base."
EMW South Africa has also launched a fully managed service aimed at taking away the headache of SMEs having to worry about managing the device on the LAN. "When we launched the product, we decided that even though once the device has been setup it is fairly self-sufficient, we were going to go one step further and offer SMEs a totally managed service included in the price of the solution to cover the day to day management of the device."
So, after many years of the SME market being left largely in the dark with regards to the choice of what to put where for IT security in their business, it looks like Mako Networks and EMW South Africa plan on addressing these issues with a fairly unique and exciting new product.
EMW plans on setting up an extensive local reseller channel for the promotion of the Mako product range and has invited all interested parties to contact the company via e-mail on mako@emwza.com. Further information on the Mako product range can be obtained off the EMW South Africa or Mako Networks Web sites.
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