WatchGuard Firebox X750e

The redbox, targeted at medium enterprises provides ease of scalability and protection from external threats

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

This is meant for SMBs and remote offices. It has eight 100 Mbps ports and a two line display where you can get basic network information. It doesn't provide browser based management, like most other UTMs in the shootout. For managing the device, you need to have a software installed on your system. Even for accessing the UTM remotely, you need to have the software.

This method of accessing the device is more secure than that of browser-based management. We found configuring this device quite complex as compared to other UTMs in the shootout. It provides a scalability option that is a bit different from others. Suppose you have Firebox X750e and your requirement exceeds the next day, then the same device can be upgraded to X1250e by just upgrading the firmware (hardware is same in both boxes). And suppose you need to upgrade your 'e series' of UTMs to 'p series' Fireboxes, then you do not have to reconfigure the box.

The old 'e series' configuration can be upload to a 'p series' box and you have 'p series' box configured with same policies that you had earlier.

The box performed above average compared to others in its class. Initially we tested anti-virus capabilities of this box.

This box blocked mostly all latest viruses, but was unable to block old viruses; which included zipped and macro viruses.

Then we tested its anti-spam capability, for which we downloaded 1000 spam from our mail server. It was able to detect 83% of spam, which is quite good. Like other UTMs, we also tried to jam its port, but its ports could not be jammed. there was also no degradation in performance. Next we ran Arpspoof from its internal network, but the device failed to detect it. We also ran port scan and DOS attack from its external network which it detected.

Bottomline: A good security watchguard, which can be upgraded to meet future needs.

Page(s)   1