Security Software from SECURE COMPUTING®

All businesses need security software, and today, even the smallest company uses the Internet and deploys at least one or two security software packages. One of the most important things to understand about security software however, is not the software itself, but the platform on which it runs.

When security software is deployed on an application server alongside other day-to-day productivity applications, and when that server runs a standard, commercial operating system, the security software is vulnerable to the same attacks that target the other applications. The security software therefore must not only be able to protect the network and the other applications, it must also protect itself from attack. The security system is the first thing the attacker sees, and if it is vulnerable to the same attacks as the rest of the network, it is useless.

Secure Computing's Sidewinder® security appliance imposes tight control over the security software, and protects it from attack, so that it can go on and do its job. Sidewinder does not run on a commercial operating system, instead, it runs on the hardened SecureOS® operating system with Type Enforcement™. Unlike standard commercial operating systems, SecureOS does not include many of the standard extraneous elements of a commercial OS, which are unnecessary because Sidewinder is a dedicated appliance.

The firewall, or security appliance, is the first system an attacker encounters when trying to penetrate a network, and so the security appliance has the dual role of protecting the network, and protecting the appliance itself. SecureOS, and its Type Enforcement technology, protects everything in the security appliance, including every file, directory, and application, against root access. Every piece of security software that comes pre-installed on the Sidewinder security appliance is absolutely protected, and it is simply impossible to install malicious software, install a buffer overflow attack, or launch any type of other known or unknown attack. The Sidewinder security appliance and its integrated suite of security software is built on patented Type Enforcement technology, which imposes mandatory access control (MAC). This hard codes the Sidewinder security software, so no user, under any circumstances, can reduce the level of access restriction that is imposed by the software itself. It also makes it impossible for any malware to be installed on the appliance.

This approach eliminates all unconstrained privileges and extraneous services that would be found on a commercial OS, and provides for a strong level of separation of the operating system and other applications, as well as between the applications themselves.

Security Software by SECURE COMPUTING is as follows:

Web Gateway Security Products
Web Gateway products enable organizations to understand, and monitor their Internet use, while taking effective steps to provide appropriate control over outbound Web access - all important components of any security software solution.

For more information on Secure Computing's security software solutions, please visit our
Products-at-a-Glance page.