Symantec highlights new security products for database and e-mail

At its Security 2.0 event in New York Tuesday, Symantec plans to make use of the spotlight to showcase its new Database Security and Mail Security 8300 Series appliances.

The Database Security appliance is designed for monitoring network traffic to analyze database queries for security purposes in order to issue alerts to managers when database activity falls outside normal parameters for the organization. The appliance can also issue alerts when it detects suspicious activity such as SQL injection attacks, or when sensitive information such as credit-card numbers or Social Security numbers leave the database.

“Based on administrator-defined data patterns, it builds a policy that flags anomalies," says Don Kleinschnitz, vice president of recovery, access, provisioning and security solutions.

In January, Symantec disclosed its Advanced Concepts Group was developing the database monitoring and auditing tool, with Boston-based CareGroup Healthcare System actively engaged as an early adopter to add security protection for its IBM and Oracle databases.

The product, which costs $15,000, comes pre-configured on Windows-based hardware; there are also plans to offer it as software-only in the future.

Monitoring the mail

Symantec's second product announcement pertains to its next-generation of e-mail security appliances expected to ship next month.

The Mail Security 8300 Series appliances will process up to 25 million messages per day and support up to 150,000 users, more than double the previous 8200 Series, the company says. The appliances, intended for large organizations, will be able to perform content-filtering, including antispam and antivirus.

For spam protection, a feature Symantec introduced over a year ago in its service provider spam-prevention engine to throttle back the bandwidth available to spam in favor of legitimate mail, will also be made part of the 8300 Series for enterprise use.

The product will also provide a way to monitor outbound content through either simple keyword or scanning the message, including attachments, in order to mitigate the risk of sensitive information being sent outside the organization.

According to Francis deSouza, Symantec’s vice president of enterprise messaging management, Mail Security 8300 appliances, will offer administrators the option of either blocking suspicious outbound content or simply flagging it for review. The boxes start at $5,000.