The Importance of Perimeter Protection
Internet-based threats are increasing in both frequency and impact across today’s enterprises. Unsolicited e-mails are creating major problems for all companies, either in the form of security threats, consuming excessive network bandwidth and storage, or by reducing employee productivity by permitting large volumes of spam to reach users’ desktops.
According to the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), 82-87% of all incoming email is currently categorized as spam or ‘abusive email’. The amount of spam is already enormous, and is increasing every year:
1978 – An e-mail spam is sent to 600 addresses
1994 – First large-scale spam sent to 6,000 newsgroups, reaching millions of people
2005 – (June) 30 billion spam emails sent per day
2006 – (June) 55 billion spam emails sent per day
2006 – (December) 85 billion spam emails sent per day
2007 – (February) 90 billion spam emails sent per day
Less frequent than spam, but more dangerous by far are the various forms of Internet-based security threats that are targeting enterprises. These threats are often either politically or financially motivated. A recent article from the BBC News Bureau illustrates this trend dramatically. They connected an unprotected Windows XP machine to the Internet with no firewall or anti-virus software to see how long it would be before it was hit by something devastating from the Net. In just eight seconds, the unprotected PC was hit by Sasser – one of the fastest spreading worms on the Internet!
Managing Two Types of Threats
Due to the increase in the number and severity of Internet-based threats, corporate perimeter protection has become a necessity – not a luxury. Enterprises are currently battling two major types of Internet-borne threats: network-level and content-based threats.
- Network-level threats include unauthorized connections to the corporate network, theft of information in Internet transmissions, and network intrusions through authorized connections. These threats are dealt with through network technologies such as firewalls, VPN servers, and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
- Content-based threats include malware (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, and phishing), spam, and the misuse of the Internet in corporate environments (accessing Web pages unrelated to work). In order to combat these two types of threats, companies need to deploy powerful perimeter defense systems. These edge security solutions need to have the ability to deliver high message filtering accuracy, combined with the superior carrier-grade performance required by today’s enterprises. An effective perimeter protection appliance can help enterprises:
- Optimize resources by freeing up servers and workstations
- Increase user productivity by eliminating unnecessary traffic on the network
- Decrease the number of (or eliminate) successful security attacks on the enterprise
Panda Perimeter Security Solutions for All Enterprises
Hardware perimeter protection devices can effectively prevent Internet-based threats from reaching the enterprise’s internal network. Different types of threats are best dealt with by different categories of dedicated devices. Some of these solutions offer content-based protection; others include protection against network-level threats.
Panda GateDefender appliances offer companies of all sizes highly scalable and comprehensive gateway-level protection against all types of Internet-based threats. Every company has its own specific security needs according to its size, volume, and the type of traffic it handles. To meet these differing needs, Panda Security provides two types of perimeter protection appliances – the Panda GateDefender Performa and GateDefender Integra series of perimeter security appliances.
- Panda GateDefender Performa appliances protect companies from Internet content-based threats such as viruses, malware, inappropriate content, and message-borne threats. Panda GateDefender Performa is designed for maximum scalability and performance.
- Panda GateDefender Integra appliances add network-level protection through a firewall and VPN to the many features of the Performa to provide a complete, unified threat management (UTM) solution. Panda GateDefender Integra provides an easy to use solution that meets the needs of small to medium enterprises.
Panda GateDefender Performa
GateDefender Performa is a hardware device incorporating high performance, dedicated software to prevent content-based threats, including malware, spam, and inappropriate Web content, from entering the corporate network. It combines reactive protection with a preventive heuristic detection engine to guarantee security – even against the latest unknown threats. GateDefender Performa provides the maximum level of scalability and performance for all companies, but is especially well-suited to the needs of medium to large enterprises.
