* Cyberguard's ongoing effort to round out its security offerings
Cyberguard is continuing its pursuit of technologies to add to its core firewall VPN gear, with the latest being URL filtering.
The company has been steadily buying up companies for the security platforms it can add to its current line. The completion last month of its purchase of Webwasher will enable Cyberguard to add another notch to its belt.
Via its own development efforts and its acquisitions over the past two years Cyberguard now offers firewall, VPN, content filtering, crypto acceleration hardware, spam filtering, anti-virus and Secure Sockets Layer termination. At the moment, a customer that wants to load up on all Cyberguard’s protection technologies would have to buy two hardware platforms – one for the firewall/VPN and another for the rest – but the company says it has plans to consolidate these on a single platform.
The company also is announcing a new version of its management software called Global Command Center that integrates management for small-site firewall/VPN boxes that it acquired when it bought SnapGear last year. This enables businesses with sites ranging from large to small to use a single platform for managing all the devices. Previously, Global Command Center managed only Cyberguard’s core VPN products.
While adding security applications to firewall/VPN platforms isn’t new, Cyberguard puts a different spin on it. One way to look at these platforms is that they offer a range of protection from one vendor with one management platform. This saves dealing with many vendors and individual management software.
But because each layer of security such as URL filtering or anti-spam software can be added individually, these platforms allow flexibility. If customers have anti-spam software they are happy with, they don’t have to buy it with a larger package.
Cyberguard says that soon it will add intrusion prevention to its arsenal.
