BANGALORE, INDIA: Secure Computing Corporation, enterprise gateway security company, today unveiled Secure Firewall (formerly known as Sidewinder) Geo-Location, a new service that allows organizations to create policies that block connections by an IP address (for any network protocol/application), based on country code information. 
 
Secure Computing's Secure Firewall is the first and only firewall to provide organizations with the ability to reduce their exposure to attack by essentially shrinking the size of the Internet.  Geo-Location does this by blocking or allowing the organization to apply additional in-depth application filtering on all traffic from countries that they do not do business with, or that are known originators of malicious hacking. 
 
Key benefits to organizations when Secure Firewall Geo-Location is implemented at the network perimeter:
 
Geo-Location, in conjunction with Secure Computing's TrustedSource reputation-based filtering, further reduces an organization's threat exposure by defining policies that rely on a combination of IP address reputation as well as country code.
 
Prevents employees from visiting malware infected Web sites hosted in countries blocked by the Secure Firewall and Geo-Location policy. 
 
Reduces traffic volume and therefore bandwidth requirements on public-facing Web,  application and remote access servers, which don't have to process these unwanted connections from countries which the organization has disallowed.
 
Secure Computing's Secure Firewall is setting a new standard for proactive threat detection by integrating the industry's leading reputation system, TrustedSource and the new Geo-Location technology into every firewall. The combination of TrustedSoure reputation based policy and Geo-Location country policy can be used with existing firewall policies such as anti-virus, IPS signatures, and application layer filtering to further reduce the company's exposure and prevent attacks. 
 
"The Secure Firewall's ability to filter connections based on the country code of an IP address enables our clients to significantly reduce virus and malware threats from high risk areas they would normally not be doing business with," said Preston Hogue, Chief Security Officer of Network Computing Architects, Inc.  "We have several clients and prospects that see this as a tremendous new way to enhance their network security and reduce the load on their perimeter defense controls."
 
"Threat and traffic reduction are mutually desirable outcomes. Because unwanted and malicious traffic often comes from certain geographic regions where customers have no legitimate business interests, managing that traffic can reduce threats, improve security, and drive other benefits (potentially lowers mail archiving, compliance, eDiscovery, and other IT activities). Geo-Location technology potentially provides these benefits by allowing enterprises to filter connections at the firewall perimeter based on the country location," said IDC research director Charles Kolodgy. "This control, in conjunction with TrustedSource reputation filtering, can provide a heightened layer of protection. These capabilities are greatly expanding what network security devices can do, which is part of the growing trend for Extensible Threat Management (XTM)."