Sourcefire Announces General Availability of 3D System 4.9 and VMware-Based Virtual Appliances

Sourcefire announced the general availability of the Sourcefire 3D® System 4.9 release, providing more than two dozen intrusion prevention system (IPS) enhancements, including improved network visibility, new dashboard customization options, and the industry’s first Policy Layering capability. The company has also released its first VMware-based virtual appliances to extend IPS protection to virtualized systems and remote office locations.

Sourcefire’s innovative Adaptive IPS automates key intrusion prevention functions, such as IPS tuning, impact assessment, user correlation and network discovery. With the 4.9 release, Sourcefire® has raised the bar by offering the industry’s first Policy Layering capability, enabling organizations with multiple detection policies to construct them in “building blocks,” making it easy to create and modify policies by geography, site, department, or even by user. Sourcefire has also added a Custom Analysis Widget to its portal-like dashboard affording even greater flexibility, and it has expanded its application detection capabilities by adding new detectors for Oracle, Firefox, Gnutella, Timbuktu, and more.

Along with the 3D System 4.9 release, Sourcefire is now shipping its first VMware-based virtual appliances, including the Sourcefire Virtual 3D Sensor™ and Sourcefire Virtual Defense Center™. Compatible with VMware’s ESX and ESXi platforms, the Virtual 3D Sensor offers IPS protection from 5 to 500Mbps and can be monitored and managed by physical or virtual Defense Center management consoles. These new virtual appliances afford enterprises, managed security service providers (MSSPs), and cloud computing providers with the same Snort-based IPS protection as their physical 3D Sensor counterparts.

Blue Coat ProxySG Achieves FIPS 140-2 Certification for Secure Web Gateway Appliances

Blue Coat Systems announced that its Blue Coat® ProxySG® appliances and SGOS 5.3 operating system have achieved Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification. The Blue Coat ProxySG appliances are the first and only Secure Web Gateway appliances that have been FIPS 140-2 certified. Blue Coat has also received ICSA Labs certification for its SGOS 5.3 operating system and its ProxySG appliances are the only Secure Web Gateway appliances that are certified at Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2.

“Blue Coat appliances feature a purpose-built, highly secure operating system and architectural elements that are designed to meet the most rigorous security standards in the world,” said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing and Corporate Development for Blue Coat Systems. “These security certifications underscore our commitment and ability to provide government organizations and enterprises with the high levels of security they require.”
Federal Information Processing Standards are publicly announced standards developed by the United States Federal government for use by all non-military government agencies and by government contractors. FIPS 140-2 covers the secure design and implementation of a cryptographic module, including roles, services, and authentication; physical security; operational environment; cryptographic key management; electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility; self-tests; design assurance; and mitigation of other attacks. Visit the Blue Coat press room for complete certification details

Rackspace and VeriSign Offer Enterprise-Class Security Safeguards

Rackspace® Hosting is extending the protection it offers to its customers by offering the full line of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates from VeriSign. Under terms of a recently expanded agreement with VeriSign, Rackspace now can directly sell, install and renew VeriSign® SSL Certificates to its customers. Additionally, the entire line of VeriSign® SSL Certificates is now available as a self-service option via the MyRackspace.com customer portal.

In addition to standard SSL protection, Rackspace offers VeriSign® Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates. EV SSL Certificates offer a proven safeguard against phishing scams that lure unsuspecting consumers to sites that can appear almost identical to genuine Web pages. Identity thieves use these fraudulent pages to capture credit card numbers, passwords and other valuable personal information. When visiting sites protected by VeriSign EV SSL, Internet users using browsers that support EV see a green address bar. Over 70% of browsers used today can show a green bar, including Internet Explorer 7/8, Firefox 3.0/3.5, Opera 9.X and higher, Google Chrome, Safari 3.2, Safari 4, Flock (social networking browser) and the iPhone. The green bar tells consumers they have reached a Web site whose authenticity has been certified by VeriSign. An EV SSL Certificate triggers visual cues beyond the green address bar, including a new field that contains the name of the organization that owns the site and in some cases the name of the security provider that issued the certificate.

HCL Security Collaborates with Cisco to Help Enable Safer and More Secure Communities

HCL Security announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cisco to collaborate on delivering IP-based safety and security solutions to help enable safer and more secure communities. The collaboration will combine the strengths of Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities leadership with HCL Security's 'Safe State' architecture to deliver safety and security solutions in India initially and later in other countries.

Cisco Smart+Connected Safety and Security solutions address the growing complexity of protecting citizens, critical infrastructure, and key assets by enabling the construction of a common security operations picture while helping to ensure full integration and interoperability between different functional parts of the security system. HCL Security's Safe State is an architecture that offers integrated urban safety and security technology solutions with policing and enabling actionable intelligence to make a city secure and safe.

"Cisco envisages a future where successful communities and cities will run on networked information, and where information technology will help the world better manage its challenges. We recognize that the mission of public safety and security is at the heart of economic capacity, potential, and growth. For a city or community to grow, thrive, and attract human and financial capital, it needs to be highly secure.

Sophos and Juniper Networks Launch Integrated Anti-Spam Solution for Branch Office Applications

Sophos today announced its collaboration with Juniper Networks® to integrate its anti-spam technology into Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways, SSG Series Secure Services Gateways and J Series Services Routers for the branch. Juniper’s high-performance security platforms, designed for branch offices in small to large global deployments, provide protection from internal and external attacks, prevent unauthorized access, and contribute to regulatory compliance. Juniper’s SRX Series, SSG Series and J Series using Sophos’s proactive, real-time IP reputation services can eliminate more than 90% of spam proactively and efficiently based on sender IP information, identifying spammers before their reputation has been established. Sophos eXtensible List (SXL) real-time updates provide instant access to the latest anti-spam intelligence from SophosLabs without having to wait for an update to be distributed.

“Sophos has built a solid reputation for its dependable and high-performance enterprise security solutions,” said Alex Gray, vice president and general manager, Branch Solutions at Juniper Networks. “Sophos anti-spam intelligence will provide our distributed enterprise customers with the highest level of protection and ease of doing business.”

At the core of Sophos’s anti-spam technology is SophosLabs, a global network of blended threat research facilities. SophosLabs analyzes millions of emails and billions of web pages every day to deliver comprehensive threat protection to customers. Anti-spam analysis techniques such as IP reputation, advanced heuristics, message and attachment fingerprinting, keyword analysis, and URL detection are combined with real-time SXL technology to deliver proactive protection from emerging spam campaigns. Also available via SophosLabs is Behavioral Genotype, which provides proactive protection from fast-moving modern web threats including malware, spyware, adware and phishing, effectively guarding against evolving and zero-day threats. In fact, Sophos identifies approximately 6,500 new spam-related web pages every day — that’s one new website every 13 seconds, 24 hours a day. Visit the Sophos press room for complete details