The Sidewinder G2 Security Appliance is the most comprehensive gateway
security appliance in the world, with the strongest credentials of any
leading all-in-one firewall or Unified Threat Management security
appliance (as tracked by IDC). This market leading Internet security
appliance delivers protections for applications and networks against
the entire threat matrix—and at Gigabit speeds. The G2 Security
Appliance consolidates the widest variety of gateway security
functions in one system, reducing the complexity of managing a total
perimeter security solution. These security functions include our
unprecedented Application Defenses* firewall with embedded anti-virus,
anti-spam, traffic anomaly detection, IDS/IPS, and a whole host of
other critical protective features described below.
The Sidewinder G2 Security Appliance includes the only firewall that
has never had a CERT advisory posted against it in over 10 years—a
truly remarkable accomplishment. It has achieved the highest level of
EAL4+ Common Criteria certification possible, with the largest, most
in-depth, extensive security target available (far stronger than other
vendors’ EAL4 ratings). As a result, your Sidewinder G2 provides you
with defense-in-depth protections against the entire threat matrix
around the clock.

*Some Sidewinder G2 Application Defenses features are optional
modules.

Overview



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Perimeter security appliances are experiencing a resurgence of intense
scrutiny today, particularly devices that include firewall technology.
Beginning with the Internet boom of the late 1990s, performance was
the primary metric that drove firewall selection. Security took a back
seat, allowing vendors with stateful packet inspection to attain a
leadership market position. Two disturbing trends have begun to swing
the decision-making pendulum back toward security. First, the number
of serious flaws in the perimeter security devices themselves,
including a high number of CERT advisories and root vulnerabilities
that has caused administrators to spend time on securing their
firewalls, a device that was supposed to provide them with security,
not the other way around! More devastating in its effect though is the
dramatic rise in application level attacks (MSBlaster, MyDoom, Slammer
and the like) that are slipping through stateful inspection firewall
technology. This has brought about the advent of additional security
technologies such as "intrusion prevention systems", and has caused
organizations all over the world to rethink their firewall decision.
As a result, a major inflection point is occurring in the perimeter
security market right now as evidenced by the attention of leading
analyst firms, Gartner, META, and IDC in particular.
In response to this inflection point, IDC has defined a new emerging
security segment, known as UTM, or Unified Threat Management*. IDC has
begun tracking vendors who provide security appliances in this
emerging space, which is estimated to far outpace the sales of
traditional perimeter security devices such as firewalls. In fact, the
market for UTM security appliances is estimated by IDC to grow to $2
billion dollars annually by 2008. Most importantly, IDC has recognized
Secure Computing and the Sidewinder G2 Security Appliance as one of
the clear leaders in this new segment.

Because of these new trends and the emerging UTM security segment, it
is no longer considered good enough to rely on a simple perimeter
security device such as a firewall that opens and closes connections
without analyzing the traffic going through. Information Security
purchasers are beginning to demand that their perimeter security
devices recognize and actually stop attacks rather than permitting
them to go through them. Most people believed that stateful inspection
technology has done this all along—however, it has not and does not
provide this level of defense—it was never designed to.

In contrast, from its inception, the Sidewinder G2 Application Defense
technology has been detecting and stopping attacks for over 10 years.
It can protect and defend against over 100,000 attacks, including
protections against attacks that are as yet unknown, because of its
stringent protocol and RFC controls. More importantly, this
purpose-built protection does not sacrifice performance—but rather, is
delivered at the network speeds that you need, even up to gigabit
processing rates. Organizations need to be protected against the full
range of threats targeted against networks and applications, and no
perimeter security appliance is more proven or capable than Secure
Computing’s application layer security gateway, the Sidewinder G2
Security Appliance.