Symantec touts security in a box

Symantec Corp is to ship a hardware appliance intended to provide security defenses on five fronts from a single box. The Symantec Gateway Security 5000 series will provide combined firewall, gateway-level anti-virus software, intrusion detection, content filtering and VPN (virtual private networking) capabilities.

The product is being pitched to appeal to small and medium-sized businesses and for use in branch offices of large corporations without the IT staffs that are needed to manage the complexities of running multiple, network security products.

Symantec's unit is managed from a GUI console included with the appliance. The firewall is derived from the Symantec Enterprise Firewall 7.0, while the anti-virus system is driven by Symantec's Navex engine and an IPSec-compliant VPN component that is based on Symantec Enterprise VPN 7.0.

Automated updates are provided via Symantec's LiveUpdate service. The range comes in three models supporting up to 50 nodes, 250 nodes and the $51,990 top-end 5300 unit, which the company suggests should handle up to 1,000 nodes.

Cupertino, California-based Symantec joins a number of security vendors who appear to be pinning their hopes on an emerging market demand for integrated security devices. The recent poor performances of Check Point Software Technologies Inc and SonicWall Inc may well be evidence that the market for firewalls and virtual private networks is starting to slow down.

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