Cloud-connected security and storage specialist Barracuda Networks has unveiled a security suite that combines Barracuda Firewall, Web Filter and Spam Firewall Virtual Appliances in a single hardware platform and announced enhancements to the security capabilities of its Web Application Firewall.
The Security Suite allows customers to purchase and deploy protection across three common threat vectors—email, Web browsing and network perimeters—and independently scale these functions with a virtualized platform.
The platform is currently available with U.S. list price starting at $5,999 for the appliance and $2,899 for the combined Energize Updates and Instant Replacement subscription.
Instant Replacement is designed for ongoing investment protection, featuring priority replacement of failed hardware and a complimentary refresh of 4-year-old hardware units.
The solution is part of the company’s Total Threat Protection initiative, which is aimed at providing protection across multiple threat vectors with simplified management.
“We’ve taken an entirely new approach to delivering this type of capability, without compromising speed or functionality,” Stephen Pao, general manager of security at Barracuda, told eWEEK. “We’ve designed the platform so that virtual instances of each of our Barracuda Spam Firewall, Barracuda Web Filter and Barracuda Firewall all run independently of one another—under a single management umbrella, at an affordable cost. There’s really nothing like it available to midsized organizations today.”
Pao noted that one of the most common stumbling blocks businesses face while dealing with security is doing so with a limited IT budget and a limited staff, often having one IT manager wearing multiple hats.
“On average, only 5 percent of a company’s budget is spent on IT security, which pales in comparison to the cost of a data breach,” he said.
The firewall incorporates next-generation firewall capabilities based on application visibility and user-identity awareness. Key features also include coordinated wireless area network (WAN) optimization, centralized management and reporting.
The Web filter component offers highly granular visibility to allow administrators to create effective content and access policies, while the spam firewall provides email security that includes spam and virus blocking, data protection, denial-of-service (DoS) prevention, email continuity, encryption and policy management.
The suite is also accompanied by a single annual subscription that includes technical support, all firmware updates and ongoing Energize Updates to protect against the latest threats.
For the Web Application Firewall, the company has added URL encryption, which encrypts every URL within the response body before sending to clients, never exposing those URLs externally, and provides a mechanism for forceful browsing prevention.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) enhancements now support Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) associated ciphers. Through PFS, organizations can improve the integrity of their encrypted communications—even past communications in the event keys are ever compromised.
Improved user access control allows for user authentication across multiple domains and dual authentication against Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and RSA SecurID/Radius with one-time password (OTP). Through multifactor authentication methods, organizations can better secure access control and authorizations into all or portions of their Web applications, depending on risk.
In addition, as organizations continue to deploy protection, the latest Web Application Firewall version also includes enhancements to its administrative interface, including a wizard-based UI for creating and using configuration templates for virtually any object or policy in the system.
Enhanced reporting offers more than 40 ready-to-use reports, including geographical breakdown, and allows administrators to filter reports by security and traffic events, or by timeframe, services and top count.