Symantec Jumps into Security Appliance Arena

By Michael Foley

(03/08/02, 11:40:24 AM EDT)

Symantec Corp. released its Symantec Gateway Security appliance.The gateway security appliance incorporates five security functions into a single solution to prevent security breaches at the network perimeter. It combines firewall, gateway-level antivirus, intrusion detection, content filtering and VPN capabilities in a single appliance to provide small and medium enterprises and branch offices of large corporations with cost-effective, secure protection against today's blended Internet attacks.

Symantec Gateway Security provides network security at the gateway between the Internet and a corporate network or between individual network segments. The integrated security functions are managed from a single graphical management console included with the appliance. Using the management console, administrators can manage local and remote appliances over the Internet including advanced configurations, rule sets and cluster parameters.

Symantec Gateway Security combines five essential security functions:

• Firewall Security
• Antivirus -- Carrier Scan Server 2.2 detects malicious viruses, worms and Trojan horses by protecting e-mail, file and Web traffic (SMTP, HTTP and FTP)
• Internet Content Filtering -- Provides integrated URL filtering
• Intrusion Detection -- Detects network attacks, drops offending packets and automatically notifies the firewall of an attack
• IPSec Compliant VPN
• Automated Updates