WatchGuard Launches Cloud Security Offering

Business security solutions provider WatchGuard Technologies, has launched a cloud-based security service, dubbed Reputation Enabled Defense.

Coupled with WatchGuard XTM or XCS security appliances, Reputation Enabled Defense aims to provide small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) and their staff with protection against viruses, malware, spyware, keyloggers, botnets and other web-based threats, in addition to faster, more productive web surfing experiences.

Safe Internet Practices

The Reputation Enabled Defense solution offers secure web browsing experiences via a cloud-based reputation lookup that scores URLs as either good, bad or unknown. The lookup utilises a global database that aggregates data from multiple feeds, including anti-virus engines.

URLs with bad reputations are immediately blocked. URLs with unknown reputations are scanned by WatchGuard XTM or XCS appliances to ensure that they are malware free, and URLs with good reputations are accelerated through the WatchGuard appliances.

The company said this significantly boosts web traffic performance over the network while keeping employees safe from drive-by-downloads and other web-based attacks.

WatchGuard also gives administrators the ability to configure reputation thresholds, which helps businesses to optimise and control IT risk management, the company said. Reputation Enabled Defense is available for all WatchGuard XTM and XCS appliances. One-year service subscriptions begin at $155 (£104) per year.

Increasing Risk

“Safe Internet practices are no longer limited to avoiding high-risk websites or utilising black and white lists,” said Charles Kolodgy, research vice president of security products at technology research firm IDC. “Criminals are becoming more clever at injecting malware into innocuous websites, which forces businesses to scan every packet of network traffic, thus degrading network performance. An ideal solution to address this problem is the utilisation of reputation services, which leverages the cloud to mitigate web-based threats before they can bog down the network.”

According WatchGuard researchers, 38 percent of the web contains malicious code, and this number is growing exponentially. Additionally, 77 percent of websites with malicious code are legitimate sites that have been hijacked by hackers, which is directly attributable to why 57 percent of data theft occurs over the web. Because of this, WatchGuard said it developed Reputation Enabled Defense to protect users against stealthy next-generation web threats.

“WatchGuard is the first and only security vendor to have full URL reputation services integrated with its multifunction, next-generation firewalls,” said Eric Aarrestad, vice president of marketing at WatchGuard. “While other security vendors promote faster appliances, the focus at WatchGuard is to develop superior security offerings to address the real threats and needs of businesses today.”