WatchGuard
WatchGuard Technologies, a global provider of manageable business security solutions, unveiled Monday its latest release of the operating system that forms the backbone of the WatchGuard XTM line of security solutions – WatchGuard Fireware XTM 11.6. In particular, this new release includes substantive performance and management enhancements that help administrators define, review and enforce network policies.
"Today, having strong security is not enough. Industry and regulatory compliance require next-generation firewalls to also include rich reporting and policy management capabilities," said Roger Klorese, director of product management at WatchGuard Technologies. "With this new release of Fireware XTM, WatchGuard continues to push the envelope by giving administrators powerful tools to see what is going on in their network, as well as rich policy controls that give them new abilities to quickly and easily create and enforce security policies."
Fireware XTM 11.6, which is available for all WatchGuard XTM models, delivers enhancements, including simple definition of user rules in Citrix and Terminal Services. Fireware XTM 11.6 has been updated to provide single sign-on so that users coming through Citrix XenApp or Microsoft Terminal Services environments don't require any additional authentication steps. WatchGuard user authentication page has also been updated to support smart phones (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile), enabling mobile users to be identified for use in policy management and reporting.
Fireware XTM 11.6 also supports Reputation Enabled Defense, a cloud-based URL reputation service that protects web users from malicious web pages, has been updated to include new phishing and malware information feeds from PhishTank and MalwareDomainList. Its firewall throughput has been increased on all XTM 5 and 8 Series models, by as much as 50 percent in some cases. Report Manager has been updated to include a dashboard and a single set of reports for both PCI and HIPAA. It now provides easy one-click access to information needed for compliance requirements.
The number of VLANs on XTM 3, 5, and 8 Series platforms has been increased. Fireware XTM 11.6 provides new diagnostic capabilities that help users to troubleshoot VPN interoperability and connectivity issues. Fireware XTM 11.6 introduces new tools to help simplify the understanding and maintenance of policies as defined on the firewall. On-line Policy Checker also helps to simulate and understand how traffic is handled through the firewall. Users can enter IP address and port combinations to determine which firewall rule is triggered and whether traffic will be allowed. Users are also provided with easy-to-read and simple-to-print policy view of the Fireware XTM configuration is useful for sharing with management. Test and diagnose Active Directory and LDAP connections and verify group membership information.
Additional enhancements also include user authentication auto redirect page can be configured to point to a specified hostname, enabling customers to use commercial CA signed certificates for users, WebBlocker URL database updates are scheduled to occur automatically every 24 hours, avoiding the need to set up a scheduled task, and IPSec Pass-through works with Static NAT, enabling branch office tunnels to be built from remote sites to routers behind the WatchGuard firewall.
WatchGuard Fireware XTM 11.6 is available now for free for customers with current LiveSecurity service.
