etisalat gives firewall technologies presentation

Dubai: etisalat yesterday presented participants at the Hacker Halted Conference held at the Shaikh Rashid Hall, Dubai International Convention Centre, with an informed perspective on the latest firewall technologies impacting the security posture of enterprises. The conference was organised by 32Group and Dubai Informatics Computer Centre with etisalat being a gold sponsor of the event.

The presentation by Rashed Al Abbar, eSecurity Product Manager, Etisalat titled "New Firewall Technologies" highlighted the shift in firewall technologies to a more versatile platform.

Redundant

Traditional firewalls became redundant due to inherent limitations such as being geared only towards perimeter defence and not geared to combat threats from within the enterprise itself. System administrators were also forced to deal with complex firewall systems .

This growing complexity eventually forced security companies to integrate security applications and services into a single system giving rise to Unified Threat Management (UTM). Under this product category, devices have a dedicated hardware (ASIC -Application Specific Integrated Circuit) for each security application on the appliance improving performance dramatically.

Less proliferation

A UTM based approach can lead to less server proliferation allowing enterprises and managed security service provider to manage security remotely. Protection from blended threats requires a comprehensive security solution that contains unified layers of defense and response mechanisms with centralized management and this is where a UTM device can play a major role.

In September 2004, IDC became the first industry analyst firm to recognize UTM as a product category predicting that this would soon be the norm for the industry by end 2008.

According to Rashed Al Abbar "UTM reduces complexity with a comprehensive systems oriented modular approach that simplifies security function selection, integration and support. etisalat in its move towards becoming a managed security services provider is well positioned to offer such technology to enterprises and SMEs. A growing number of Fortune 100 enterprises, carriers and managed security service providers are turning to advanced UTM platforms to offer modular security more cost effectively and flexibly on a single system."

"etisalat is pleased to be participating in such a relevant industry event and this highlights our commitment to increase industry awareness and shape discussions on the latest technology trends impacting the security scenario today.

"etisalat's Enterprise eSecurity Services currently help organisations across the UAE secure their infrastructure through PKI services, vulnerability assessment, managed security services and compliance management with standards like ISO 27001," he added.