WatchGuard releases next-generation Firewall

WatchGuard is proud to announce the release of its next-generation Firewall XTM 2050 for the large enterprise market.

This release ensures maximum throughput, while also factoring in affordability and ease of use with the WatchGuard System manager v11.5. The WatchGuard XTM 2050 includes multi-gigabit Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) that secures corporate Internet traffic against all of today's challenges.

These challenges include hackers, malware, network attacks, intrusion attempts, data theft, and other cyber crime. The XTM 2050 will securely connect offices, remote and virtual employees, providing real-time and historical visibility into security and user events.

The new XTM 2050 Application Control provides global and policy-based monitoring and blocking of over 1 800 unique Web and business applications for greater productivity and enhanced security.

Empower administrators to exercise fine-grained control over hundreds of applications, and understand which applications are being used and by whom, by using over 2 500 signatures and advanced behavioural techniques. With this fully integrated security subscription, IT administrators can enforce acceptable use policies for users and groups by category, application, and application sub-functions. For example, they can create a policy that allows any user to access Facebook, but not Facebook games or uploading pictures.

WatchGuard's next-generation firewall (NGFW) series comprises a high performance platform, the XTM 2050, which provides fully extensible, enterprise-class protection and productivity safeguards. The WatchGuard XTM 2050 is targeted toward large enterprises, headquarters, data centres and managed security service providers.

WatchGuard's NGFW products provide true line-speed security inspection on all traffic and support multi-gigabit packet filtering throughput. In addition, the NGFW line provides application control, connects offices via unique Drag and Drop VPN.

IPS identifies malware and gives the administrator the opportunity to allow, block or log questionable traffic based on type, user/group. This gives the administrators the opportunity to identify possible threats to their network.

Intrusion prevention will provide real-time protection against network threats, which includes spyware, SQL injections, cross-site scripting, and one other important factor: buffer overflows. IPS scans traffic on all major protocols, using constantly updated signatures to identify and block all types of threats or threat outbreak.

The hardware in the NGFW XTM 2050 is superior to its competitors with dual, hot swap power supplies, hot swap fans, and swappable NICS and hard drives.

Enterprise markets could expect faster, stronger and extraordinary security with lightning fast and amazing 20Gbps throughput. 16 x 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports and 2 x 10 Gigabit SFP + fibre ports will give high end customers an opportunity to have XTM-class security and reliability, with the performance and capacity their market segment requires.

Some of the authenticating methods include Radius, LDAP, Secure LDAP and Windows Active Directory. All of this is operated with the Fireware Pro Operating System that would enable you to do policy-based rooting and server load balancing that would give the end-user more flexibility.