A new firewall offering from the Sophos Group is now available from Duxbury Networking. Dubbed the XG Firewall, it is designed to provide unprecedented visibility into the corporate network. With the ability to provide detailed, actionable intelligence on user behaviour, it is capable of identifying users most likely to put security at risk.

This is according to Andy Robb, chief technology officer at Duxbury Networking, who says the important and ground-breaking proficiency of the XG Firewall is centred on the Sophos Security Heartbeat, a threat intelligence technology that directly links any number of firewalls and Universal Threat Management solutions (UTMs) with endpoint security to block possible incursions.

“This technology effectively breaks down the wall between network and endpoint security, allowing independent endpoint and network security products to join forces against cybercrime for the first time,” he explains.

Robb says the Security Heartbeat pulses continuous, real-time information about suspicious behaviour between endpoints and the network firewall or UTM, instantly triggering a response to stop or help control a malware outbreak or data breach as it happens.

“If malware is detected on the endpoint, or suspicious traffic is identified by the firewall – such as malware communicating with a cybercriminal’s command and control server – security and threat information is instantly shared securely via the Security Heartbeat.

“The endpoint reports context-rich information associated with the threat, so the firewall can automatically isolate the endpoint to mitigate risk and prevent valuable data loss or identity theft.” Robb adds that after the threat has been removed, the Security Heartbeat communicates the endpoint’s updated health status back to the network, which then re-establishes normal service to the endpoint.

Other features of the Sophos XG Firewall include a unified policy model designed to minimise complexity by allowing organisations to manage, view, filter and sort user, application and network policies on a single screen.

For more information contact:
Luned Lira
Marketing Manager Duxbury Networking
Tel: +27 (0) 11 351 9800
Fax: +27 (0) 11 646 3079