Barracuda Networks Bolsters Web Security Gateway

One of the more frustrating issues IT organizations now routinely need to deal with is the amount of malware capable of bypassing their firewalls. Because either an end user downloads a file directly or malware is hidden in encrypted traffic the firewall is not able to inspect, the amount of malware making it past the network perimeter keeps getting higher.

To deal with that issue, Barracuda Networks developed a Web Security Gateway appliance that is specifically designed to inspect all the kinds of traffic coming into the enterprise via an HTTP or HTTPS web connection. Today, Barracuda Networks upgraded its Web Security Gateway to include support for faster inspection of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption along with the addition of agent software for Google Chromebooks.

Darius Goodall, director of product marketing for security at Barracuda Networks, says the Web Security Gateway typically sits behind a firewall where it inspects all inbound and outbound Web traffic. In addition to being able to enforce security policies by communicating with agent software installed on any type of client device, Goodall says the Web Security Gateway is integrated with threat intelligence services that enable it to identify sites known to be infected with malicious malware as well as any new forms of malware that are identified by the threat intelligence service.

Goodall adds that via this update, Barracuda Networks is now making it possible to deploy its Web Security Gateway behind its own firewalls as well as any third-party firewall or unified threat management (UTM) platform.

In general, Goodall says firewalls and other security appliances need to be augmented because users are no longer always on the corporate network.

“There’s nothing a firewall can do when a user is connecting to the internet from a coffee shop,” says Goodall.

And yet, Goodall notes that all too often, most malware first shows up in the enterprise on an endpoint. The Web Security Gateway gives IT organizations a way to apply policies to endpoints that can be centrally applied and managed, says Goodall.

It remains to be seen just how many layers of IT security will be required to combat malware scourges such as ransomware. But the one thing that is for certain is that the days of being able to mainly rely on just a firewall and anti-virus software are now long gone.