Small to medium sized businesses and home offices that are increasingly using social media tools, and increasing their exposure to web-based business risks, now have a low touch affordable solution from Blue Coat Systems.
The ProxyOne appliance is claimed to bring the same enterprise-class Web security used by 88 percent of Fortune Global 500 companies for organisations that have limited IT resources, and provide defenses over and above those given by firewalls and desktop antivirus software.
Integrating web filtering, inline malware and anti-virus scanning and on-box reporting to enable safe use of Web 2.0 applications, the ProxyOne provides protection from the latest threats without requiring Web security expertise, according to Blue Coat.
According to Lawrence Orans, research director at Gartner: “The shift in business to the Web has exposed small and large businesses alike to greater risk, yet smaller businesses often lack the financial and IT resources to protect their users, making them more vulnerable to rapidly evolving Web-based threats.
“These smaller businesses need the same type of Web security that is commonly found in large enterprises but in a solution that is easy to manage, affordable and doesn’t require them to be security experts.”
ProxyOne appliances can be deployed and configured in six steps by an IT generalist. They also include pre-configured policies and deliver automatic software upgrades and immediate security updates.
The appliances bring with it the benefits of real time web defence using a web filter to connect to its cloud-based WebPulse service which provides current and comprehensive protection. Blue Coat’s security experts continually update the WebPulse defences against new threats which is also extended to remote users through the company’s ProxyClient software at no extra cost, says Blue Coat.
It also blocks malware executables before they get on the network with a fast scanning model, so businesses don’t compromise performance for security.
The on-box reporting function provides details of potentially infected end uses as well as details of the number of threats attempting to access the network. It is also able to stop ‘video floods’ which have the potential of stopping the network from responding to requests.
Pricing for the first year starts at US$8,999 for 100 users, which includes the appliance, software licenses, automatic security updates and 24X7 support. The appliance can scale to support up to 2,000 users.
In Australia, the product is distributed by M-Tech, Distribution Central, Express Data and Data Store, and available for a 30 day evaluation period offered via the company’s Try-and-Buy program from authorised resellers, including Data3, Denver Technology, Dimension Data, Dell and HP.
