Formerly known as "Sidewinder," the Secure Firewall is deployed at the edge of the network and provides both inbound and outbound, rule-based traffic blocking capabilities. Core features of the appliances include reputation-based traffic filtering, application-layer rules, and support (in most models) for SSL decryption and analysis.

The reputation-based filtering is based on the vendor's TrustedSource technology and per-IP address ratings; it allows the appliance to communicate with the vendor's TrustedSource servers and receive a current rating per IP address that represents the IP's global behavioral reputation. This rating can then be used to block or permit traffic at the gateway as per administrator defined rules. Enhancing this reputation-based filtering is the vendor's new Geo-Location feature, which provides the ability to craft rules based on the country code of the network traffic. Geo-Location is now included with every Secure Firewall purchase.

Application-wise, the vendor notes the product's ability to recognize multiple applications and enforce blocking and/or access rules (including how they are used and who can use them) based on them; including VoIP (SIP), SQL (Oracle, MS-SQL), SSH, E-mail, FTP, HTTP, and more. Authentication can be provided locally by the box, or via integration with Active Directory, LDAP, Windows Domain, or RADIUS servers, among other possibilities.

Encryption-wise, the product lists SSH, SFTP, SCP, and SSL/HTTPS traffic all as possible of being de-crypted and analyzed, the latter capabilities purchased separately from the base appliance. All but the lowest two models of firewalls (the 210 and 410) are listed as HTTPS/SSL capable.

Other features include support for virtual firewalling (up to 32 virtual firewalls per appliance), HA deployments (both active/active and active/passive, with stateful session failover), IPS with automatic signature updates, and logging/monitoring support including on-box, Syslog, SNMP v1/v2c/v3, and exporting support.

Complementary Secure Firewall products offered by the vendor include:

- Secure Firewall CommandCenter, itself served in an appliance format and providing the ability to centrally manage multiple Secure Firewalls (i.e., define policies in a single location and push to all firewalls). The CommandCenter is offered in four models, with the lowest capable of managing up to 15 Secure Firewalls, and the highest supporting the management of unlimited firewalls.

- Secure Firewall Reporter, which is included with the Firewall and provides real-time alerting and reporting (over 800 graphical reports included) features. Reported forensic data includes such metrics as attack type, source, destination, port, protocol, severity, rule, etc. Secure Firewall Reporter is deployed on a separate server (Minimum Windows NT/2000/XP/2003) and automatically receives log/audit data from multiple Secure Firewalls for reporting.

The Secure Firewall family is currently offered across multiple appliance models; ranging from the mini-1U 210 with 4 10/100 ports and stateful throughput of up to 170 Mb/sec; to the 5U 4150, with up to twenty-four 1 Gb ports, six Fiber ports, and two 10 Gb ports and support for up to 3.6 Gb/sec of stateful throughput. Pricing ranges from $1,900 to $69,900 USD. CommandCenter pricing ranges from $6,900 to $79,900.

Visit the Secure Computing Web site for further information.