Sanctum Fortifies AppShield Firewall

Sanctum Inc. this week unveiled the latest version of its AppShield application firewall, adding several new features, including a rapid-deployment tool and a set of templates with predetermined security settings.

The new features in AppShield 4.0 are the result of feedback from customers who suggested ways that the company could improve the product, said Peggy Weigle, CEO of Sanctum, based in Santa Clara, Calif.

The new Security Dashboard feature enables an administrator to configure the firewall quickly using one of three preset templates. The Basic, Intermediate and Strict templates provide progressively more restrictive security settings, and administrators can also go in and customize each template as they see fit.

During the setup process, the admin can also do a test-drive of the software and set security policies via the Automatic Policy Generation tool. Using a trusted host machine, the administrator can attempt various actions on the Web site that AppShield is protecting, and then choose whether to allow or deny that action in the future.

Weigle said Sanctum has discovered that fully three-quarters of its customers outsource their Web development work, which means there is little institutional knowledge of the sites inner workings. This can, in turn, lead to security problems.

Sanctum has also added a URL mapping tool that allows users to mask the IP addresses of all of the Web servers that AppShield protects. And another new feature gives administrators the ability to hide sensitive data such as usernames and passwords in the firewall logs.

AppShield 4.0 is available immediately.