Traditional firewall network security devices filter data packets looking to weed out malicious traffic. In the modern era of Web threats, that’s not usually enough, which is why networking vendor Netgear is updating its lineup of ProSecure networking appliances with a new software update that helps to control application usage across the network.
The new ProSecure 3.0 firmware provides application firewall capabilities for small organizations with as few as five users.
“The challenge today with small-and-medium-sized business is that they are using social media applications but they don’t really have the expertise to understand how to secure those applications,” Henry Fan, senior product manager at NetGear, told InternetNews.com.
It’s no longer possible for businesses to simply block social networking sites in general, as there often are legitimate business-use cases for them. There are, however, plenty of non-legitimate use cases for social networking sites and applications as well. Knowing the difference between which sites are useful and productive for employees and which ones waste time is a challenge that NetGear hopes to help solve.
For example, Facebook has a lot of good, practical business-use cases for marketing and networking. On the other hand there are other applications on Facebook — like Farmville — that waste both time and bandwidth for a small business.
Read the full story at SmallBusinessComputing:
NetGear Updates SMB Network Security
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
