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eSoft’s ThreatWall: An Information Protection Solution

PFW Password - Spring 2006Internet security. By now, anyone who is involved in setting up or running and maintaining a network that connects to the Internet is familiar with those two words, and at least some of the security risks that need to be considered. For example, virus threats have existed for years, and thanks to their sheer numbers as well as frequent media coverage of new virus warnings, it’s now commonplace for businesses to have recognized the need to make an investment in an anti-virus solution to protect their data. Similarly, few companies would risk connecting to the Internet without some sort of firewall solution in place, to prevent unauthorized access to their corporate network.

However, other more recently-recognized Internet security risks are not as well understood. Now that firewalls and anti-virus software are widely used, unscrupulous individuals have directed their energies towards developing new ways to penetrate your network’s security defenses and potentially compromise your data or even personal information. Couple this with all the ways in which internal users can make poor choices as to what software to install, applications to use, or sites to visit, and the potential is there for a lot of time to be spent either fixing problems related to a security breach, or wasted in inappropriate use of the company’s Internet connection.

A Full-Featured Solution
Enter eSoft’s ThreatWall with ThreatWise Technology. Many PFW customers will already be familiar with eSoft’s InstaGate, an innovative security gateway product that integrates the functionality of a firewall, mail, web and DNS server, and security services into one box. Now, eSoft has released the ThreatWall, a security device that is designed to complement an existing firewall, regardless of its brand name, and offer increased protection against the newer varieties of security risks that your network is exposed to, including:

Gateway Anti-Spyware: This ThreatWall service addresses one of the largest Internet threats: spyware—software that is downloaded to a PC without the user’s knowledge. This software may be relatively harmless, just popping up with an advertisement from time to time, or it may be quite dangerous, logging a user’s keystrokes and passwords, or capturing other confidential information. Spyware can arrive by e-mail, web, FTP or even by instant messaging clients like MSN Messenger. Gateway Anti-Spyware on the ThreatWall will scan, detect, and prevent spyware from infiltrating the network, and if a PC that is already infected with spyware connects to the network, it will be prevented from sending any data collected by the spyware program to a remote site.

Intrusion Prevention Service: As an extension to an existing firewall, this feature deeply scans both incoming and outgoing network traffic for intrusions that may occur within an existing program. For example, web traffic allowed by the firewall may actually contain a hidden “Trojan horse” program that, once installed on a PC, may act to damage or compromise your network. In addition, an administrator can configure Intrusion Prevention Service to prevent users from using instant messaging or peer-to-peer file-sharing applications, which may be wasting time or using up your Internet connection’s data transfer quota.

In addition, the ThreatWall offers protection against more commonly-known Internet security risks, with the following features:

Spam Filter: If you make use of e-mail in your company and do not already have a spam filter in place, your users are probably aware of the annoyances of spam e-mail. Not only are you receiving unwanted e-mail, but each person who receives it has to take the time to delete it. The ThreatWall’s customizable spam filter [Fig. 2] allows an administrator to decide how e-mail should be filtered and what action should be taken for messages that have been marked as spam. To ensure that legitimate mail isn’t accidentally marked as spam, a “white list” of trusted senders can be created. The spam filter even has the capability to improve its spam filtering ability over time, by learning the types of e-mail that your company sends and receives.

E-mail Content Filtering: By definition, your users have knowledge of and access to your company’s internal information, some of which you may not want to be shared outside the walls of your building. E-mail content filtering gives you the power to enforce a company e-mail policy and scan all e-mail for keywords or phrases that you define.

Gateway Anti-Virus: Running an anti-virus package on your servers or PCs is crucial to maintaining the integrity of your network. Ideally, however, it would be better to prevent viruses from entering your network in the first place. The ThreatWall’s Gateway Anti-Virus technology will scan e-mail messages and remove any that are infected before they reach your e-mail server, adding another layer of anti-virus protection for your users.

SiteFilter: For time, security, or liability reasons, many companies choose to manage the types of web sites users are allowed to visit using the company Internet connection. With SiteFilter, you can create user, group, or time-specific policies for what sites you want to be available. Choose from the pre-defined database of 40 different categories, or create your own.

Customizable & Easy to Use
Each of these security services supported by the ThreatWall is customizable by the administrator, and is automatically kept up-to-date by periodic downloads over the Internet of new signature files and threat databases. As a result, as new threats are discovered, your ThreatWall will always have the latest level of protection available.

As with eSoft’s InstaGate product, management of the ThreatWall is done through a standard web browser interface. Initial installation is aided by easy-to-understand wizards, and once up and running, making changes, creating policies, or viewing reports can all be accomplished with a few clicks of a mouse. An important feature of the ThreatWall is its Threat Monitor, a real-time “dashboard” [Fig. 1], accessible through the web interface, that shows the current status of your ThreatWall and graphical logging of security threats that have been dealt with.

With its ease of installation and use and the wide variety of Internet security risks that it is able to detect and prevent, eSoft’s ThreatWall featuring ThreatWise Technology is your one-stop answer for increasing the security of your network.