McAfee Inc. today announced the release of its next generation firewall, McAfee Firewall Enterprise version 8. This new release ought to expand existing application protection delivered by McAfee’s enterprise firewall appliance product line, giving security admins visibility, recognition and policy enforcement over thousands of applications that are invisible to conventional firewall technology.
By integrating with McAfee’s real-time, cloud-based global threat intelligence (350 threat researchers and one hundred million data collection sensors in operation), McAfee Firewall Enterprise and McAfee Firewall Enterprise Profiler ought to provide increased visibility into external and internal threats and vulnerabilities, protecting customers more efficiently and reducing both compliance and operational costs. Application intelligence from McAfee Labs will provide comprehensive threat protection for existing as well as newly developed network applications.
“Mobile users, modern web-based applications and ever more sophisticated cyber criminals have combined with the economic environment to create the perfect storm. By expanding application protection capabilities, backed by the researchers at McAfee Labs, McAfee provides a new value proposition to customers,” said Charles Kolodgy, research VP, IDC Security Products. “McAfee Firewall Enterprise provides comprehensive application threat and malware blocking, as well as industry-leading URL filtering and reputation-based blocking capabilities. With this new release, McAfee is expanding the level of application protection customers can receive from their firewall.”
Traditional firewall technologies have proved to be expensive to manage, and in reality, don’t effectively enforce business policies. McAfee Firewall Enterprise features streamlined management through integration with McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator. This integration of management capability allows organizations to enjoy lower operating expenses. McAfee Firewall Enterprise ought to be the first and only firewall to use a global reputation-based technology, including reputation-based blocking and geo-location to filter unwanted traffic before it hits the network—stopping attacks before they happen.
McAfee Firewall Profiler pinpoints in real-time how firewall rules and rule changes impact application availability, usage and security. By providing an intuitive visual context based on users and applications, Profiler reduces the impact of creating or changing specific rules and helps firewall administrators implement new policies and respond rapidly to business needs.
McAfee Firewall Enterprise is available in traditional appliance form factors, in a new virtualized hardware appliance and as a software-based firewall virtual appliance. The McAfee Firewall Enterprise Virtual Appliance lets customers rapidly deploy protection into their own virtual environments on their own hardware.
McAfee Firewall Enterprise appliances are available this quarter, starting at $1,500 USD (MSRP). The McAfee Firewall Profiler appliance starts at $9,750 USD (MSRP). Exact pricing depends on customer requirements, selected model and associated add-on modules. (Source: McAfee, Inc./GST)