SmoothWall Adds New Security Features and Ajax Interface to Advanced Firewall

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006; 01:25 AM

SmoothWall (www.smoothwall.com) announced the latest version of Advanced Firewall, its multi-function network security solution for demanding enterprise security requirements. New additions in this version include automatic fail-over to a standby system, improved load balancing, VoIP gateway protection and spam filtering.

Image source: www.smoothwall.net

“This new version of Advanced Firewall includes many innovative new features and builds upon existing strengths, particularly in areas such as load balancing,” said George Lungley, managing director of SmoothWall. “We have added new ways to control the distribution of outgoing traffic across multiple network connections, along with the load balancing of incoming traffic. With support for up to 20 network connections and the automatic re-routing of traffic in the event of a connection failure, this all adds up to a pretty powerful load balancing capability for improved performance and reliability.”

Based upon a security-hardened version of Linux, software installation takes less than ten minutes, with subsequent configuration and management being undertaken from any web browser using an intuitive Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) enhanced GUI. Key developments in Advanced Firewall Version 2 include:

• System Resilience: In the event of a hardware problem, system operation will automatically switch to a standby Advanced Firewall system
• Load Balancing: Both outgoing and incoming traffic can be load balanced across multiple Internet connections - in the event of a communications failure, all traffic from the failed connection will be automatically re-routed to other connections that are still live
• VoIP: SIP proxy and gateway that can operate in both transparent and registering modes to support Voice over IP telephony
• Reports and Incident alerts: Many new and improved reports and real-time AJAX based log viewers
• Web security: Updated SmoothGuardian module with improved anti-spyware, anti-virus and browser exploit detection capabilities
• Email Security: Integration of the Mailshell spam detection engine into the SmoothZap module provides a highly effective yet economical anti-spam capability

Mailshell is recognized as one of the leading anti-spam companies, with several independent reviews rating it as up to 99 percent effective at blocking spam email. The multi-engine detection system analyses email on the basis of its content, sender reputation, whether it was sent in bulk and any unusual formatting characteristic of spam. SmoothZap anti-spam and anti-virus scanning can be applied to both SMTP and POP3 email using a transparent proxy, providing complete protection against threats from both corporate and any personal email. With SmoothZap running on Advanced Firewall at the network perimeter, malicious email is blocked before it enters the corporate network.

According to industry analysts Gartner, the email border security market has grown by 40% over the last year with the most prolific growth occurring in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (source: Magic Quadrant for E-Mail security Boundary, 2006).

Formed in 2000, SmoothWall is a leading Internet security provider protecting over half a million networks worldwide. With its specialist development team, SmoothWall has harnessed years of technical expertise to develop a suite of firewall, virtual private network (VPN), content filtering and bandwidth solutions used by SMEs, large corporate organizations and educational institutions.

Based in the United Kingdom, with offices in Leeds and Southampton, SmoothWall delivers global security solutions through a worldwide support network, with representation in the USA, North and South America, Europe, Africa the Middle East and Australasia.