New Enterprise Messaging, Content Security Solns Unveiled By WatchGuard

WatchGuard Technologies, a provider of business security solutions, has launched a new series of high performance messaging and content security appliances built specifically for mid-tier and enterprise environments that require inbound and outbound messaging security and comprehensive Web content control for unified network, application and data protection.

Designed and optimised for networks with 1,000 to 10,000 or more users, the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 and 1170 series of appliances offer efficacy and reliability. Leveraging an advanced anti-spam engine that examines sender information and content, including images, attachments and embedded URLs, these appliances can conduct contextual analysis of message traffic for a categorised and weighted score, which results in intelligent protection.

For additional control, administrators will appreciate the built-in quarantine for spam and suspect e-mails, which directs unwanted messages to a local quarantine server, allowing end users to manage their quarantined messages, safe lists and block lists from a Web-based interface.

Addressing blended threats and malware, the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 and 1170 series provide zero-hour threat outbreak response as well as advanced content filtering and malware protection, which scans inbound as well as outbound e-mails for malicious content.

Given that mid-tier and enterprise organisations face a litany of regulatory and compliance requirements, the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 and 1170 all include data loss prevention features, such as transparent remediation to automatically block, quarantine, re-route, blind copy, encrypt or allow messages based on configurable policies, as well as pre-defined compliance dictionaries for GLB, HIPAA, PCI DSS and others to make administration easy.

Seamless e-mail encryption secures confidential messages to any recipient without requiring a dedicated server, thus avoiding the costs associated with most encryption solutions. Furthermore, e-profiling and data discovery and classification allows administrators to classify types of sensitive data, and with centralised data loss policy management, administrators can apply single policies across multiple protocols to protect data-in-motion from loss and policy violations.

For additional redundancy, scalability and maximum uptime, the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 and 1170 appliances come with dynamic on-demand clustering and queue replication, which provides easy replication of configuration settings and messaging queues across multiple systems in minutes, as well as message-level redundancy, which ensures no communication is lost and that e-mail security is always up and running.

Enterprises can leverage the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 or 1170 to also provide defense-in-depth Web content protection. To reduce exposure to Web-based threats, administrators can invoke acceptable use and application controls to centrally manage and restrict Internet and application usage with granular policies for users and groups. URL filtering and categorisation dynamically analyses and blocks access to websites based on content policies. With dynamic inspection, real-time content examination and analysis occurs on every webpage that enters the network, and with Web traffic enhancements, organisations can reduce bandwidth consumption, server loads and Web traffic latency.

Pricing and Availability

The WatchGuard XCS series of appliances will be available worldwide from WatchGuard channel partners within 30 days. The WatchGuard XCS 770 is $8,500, the WatchGuard XCS 970 is $40,000 and the WatchGuard XCS 1170 is $60,000; all have no per user licence fees.