Symantec Beefs Up Malware Detection with Web Gateway 5

Symantec has updated its Web Gateway to version 5, featuring technology that can protect against web-based malware and prevent data loss. Anyone from the SMB to enterprise can take advantage of what SWG 5 is offering, so read on and see if it’s a fit for you …

No surprises here, Symantec reports web-based attacks have hit yet another high, up 93 percent from 2009 to 2010. Symantec believes using real-time malware detection is the best way to protect against these threats, since they’re frequently complex and evolving. SWG 5 is built on Symantec’s cloud-based protection technology, Insight, the “reputation technology” of which is the backbone of the real-time malware capabilities of the SWG appliance. And speaking of appliances, you don’t need the rackspace — SWG 5 will be available as a virtual appliance for the VMware ESX/ESXi 4 server system.

SWG 5 includes other major tweaks including on-the-fly SSL decryption to ensure DLP doesn’t happen across encrypted web pages; monitoring of both documents and communications; content blocking; and URL filtering, with deep packet scanning into specific web protocols.

If you’re an owner of the Symantec Protection Suite Enterprise Edition, you’re in luck, since SWG 5 is a simple, free upgrade. SWG 5 also runs just fine standalone. Both versions are available now, and pricing varies based on a yearly subscription model or a hardware appliance model. Worth noting: Symantec may start to face some channel competition in the security space with the combined Sophos-Astaro technology, but we’ll have to wait and see.