Personal firewalls - the next step

By Steve Janss
Network World, 08/07/00

InfoExpress describes CyberArmor as an "Enterprise Class Personal Firewall," as it's specifically designed to work in conjunction with three other products: CyberServer, CyberConsole and Policy Manager. Administrators begin with Policy Manager, where they create and maintain firewall policies, user settings and build self-extracting installers for client users.

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Once installed on the client system, CyberArmor enforces the policies through its firewall of stateful packet inspection at layers 3, 4 and 7. Packet filters weed out suspicious traffic before it significantly impacts the system. Automatic program and policy updates occur through a Web server. CyberServer centrally records alarms, status notifications, threats and configurations of remote systems.

A key benefit to this approach is the transparency of the operation to the user. Administrators do all the work, letting the users enjoy the benefits of a smoothly functioning and well-protected system that's available whether they're in the office, behind the corporate firewall or out on the road.

However, this level of finesse will cost you anywhere between $70 and $150 per user for the software alone, depending on the size of your company and your percentage of mobile users. While the CyberArmor clients cost just $49 per client, CyberServer costs $4,995 per server, CyberConsole costs $295 per seat and Policy Manager costs $995 each.

Because policies can be assigned to groups or individuals, administrators have full control over who has what level of access. Thus, the CyberArmor Suite replaces all the functions of a centralized corporate firewall with one that's decentralized, while retaining centralized control. While this approach is fairly novel, it benefits from the redundancy and efficiency gained by distributing the firewall down to the end user.