WatchGuard Technologies First To Deliver True Integration of Wired and Wireless Network Security

Fireware® 11.9 allows users to deploy, configure and manage wireless access points from a WatchGuard UTM or NGFW threat management appliance without requiring additional hardware

KUALA LUMPUR – May 30, 2014 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a leader in integrated security platforms, today announced that its Unified Threat Management (UTM) and Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) appliances are the first to allow users to deploy, configure and manage both wired and wireless network security through a single appliance in a “single pane of glass” view. This enhanced wireless functionality – made possible by the release of WatchGuard’s Fireware® 11.9 operating system – eliminates the need for additional wireless network management solutions, and gives IT professionals a unified Web interface for managing and monitoring their entire network in real time.

 “Today, wireless is an extension of an organization’s wired network. Yet, IT professionals are often forced to use separate tools and complex solutions when securing and managing those networks,” said Dave R. Taylor, vice president of corporate and product strategy at WatchGuard Technologies. “The latest update to our platform is a significant step forward and an industry first. It will save customers time and money by allowing them to consolidate management and security around their wired and wireless networks. Set your policies once and they apply to all traffic, wired and wireless alike.”

The enhanced functionality of 11.9 gives IT professionals the ability to quickly map wireless Access Points (APs) and coverage, change both wired and wireless security policies simultaneously, and to enforce traffic, coverage and security standards across the entire network infrastructure. The organization can also evaluate traffic and channel conflicts, identify vulnerabilities, manage bandwidth prioritization and even map all wireless activity on neighboring networks sharing the same frequency. This insures that all traffic and security issues are apparent and can be addressed in real time, including rogue APs that may mimic others on the network.

Version 11.9 of WatchGuard’s Fireware operating system includes other Best-of-Breed services such as: AntiVirus, AntiSpam, Application Control, Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and Data Loss Prevention (DLP). Fireware also integrates WatchGuard Dimension™, the company’s award-winning big data visibility tool, through any WatchGuard threat management appliance.

WatchGuard Technologies Reinvents Advanced Persistent Threat Management with Launch of WatchGuard APT Blocker

New APT solution provides real-time, advanced-threat visibility for Unified Threat Management and Next-Gen Firewall appliances

Advanced, cloud-based, full-system-emulation sandbox protects in minutes, not hours

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – April 10, 2014 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a leader in integrated security platforms, today announced its new Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) solution, WatchGuard APT Blocker. Delivering real-time threat visibility and protection in minutes, not hours, APT Blocker identifies and submits suspicious files to a cloud-based, next-generation sandbox, using the industry’s most sophisticated full-system-emulation environment for detecting APTs and zero day malware. The WatchGuard solution integrates with the company’s visibility tool, WatchGuard DimensionTM, providing an instant, single view of advanced threats, along with other top trends, applications and threats covered by WatchGuard’s security technologies.

APT Blocker comes pre-installed on all WatchGuard Unified Threat Management (UTM) and Next-Gen Firewall (NGFW) appliances with a free 30-day trial.  WatchGuard has extended their proprietary proxy-based architecture to detect suspicious files and send them for full-system emulation and analysis in the cloud. By adding an additional layer to the deep-packet-inspection engine, WatchGuard’s highly respected detection capabilities now extend from the universe of known threats (malware for which there is a known pattern) into the unknown.

“Nearly 88 percent of today’s malware can morph to avoid detection by signature-based AntiVirus solutions*,” said Corey Nachreiner, director of security strategy and research for WatchGuard Technologies. “That means today’s AntiVirus solutions remain necessary for catching known threats but alone, they’re no longer sufficient. APT Blocker’s full-system emulation approach to sandboxing provides simple, rapid protection, which doesn’t rely on a traditional, signature-based approach to detect and stop advanced malware; in a solution that scales to inspect millions of objects at any given time.”

WatchGuard’s UTM and NGFW security platforms were purpose-built to simplify the process of adding newly-emerging technologies such as APT management, meaning customers can deploy this sophisticated technology in a couple of clicks.  Continuing the strategy of working with best-of-breed technology partners, WatchGuard has teamed with industry veteran and APT heavyweight, Lastline, for cloud-based, full-system-emulation inspection capabilities. Lastline’s founding team has been doing advanced malware research for more than 10 years and their commercial products have significant credibility in protecting businesses against today’s unknown APT threats.

“WatchGuard is recognised as a leader in the network security space,” said Brian Laing, vice president of products for Lastline. “We are thrilled to strike up this partnership to combat advanced cyber threats. With nearly a million red WatchGuard appliances installed worldwide and our unique, cloud-based sandboxing capabilities for detecting advanced malware, companies worldwide now instantly will have access to the industry’s most sophisticated technologies to stop evasive malware designed to bypass traditional security products.”

Historically, APT targets were exclusively governments and large enterprises whose critical infrastructures were stymied by the likes of Stuxnet and Duqu. But today, advanced threats have evolved to target much smaller organisations and corporations to similarly devastating effect. Scott Robertson, Vice President of Asia Pacific for WatchGuard Technologies adds, “Since today’s APT targets are not anticipating these threats, they are not sufficiently protected. Often relying almost entirely on AntiVirus and digital-signature solutions, these networks are almost completely vulnerable.” (Click here to view an infographic on the evolution of APT.)

APT Blocker is now available and comes pre-installed with a free 30-day trial with the launch of version 11.9 of WatchGuard’s Fireware security platform, which includes other best-of-breed services such as: AntiVirus, AntiSpam, Application Control and DLP. Fireware also comes standard with WatchGuard Dimension, the company’s award-winning, real-time visibility solution.

Major highlights of version 11.9 include:
Improved application-traffic management, allowing users to control and limit application bandwidth, preserving it for business-critical applications;
Expanded administrator-audit and change-tracking visibility for improved HIPAA and PCI compliance, including tying firewall rule changes to individuals;
Customizable DLP signatures that allow companies to build on the extensive pre-defined rule sets of WatchGuard’s DLP solution;
Enhanced IPv6 support including link aggregation, VLANS and dynamic routing;
New custom network zone that allows administrators to quickly segregate wireless guest networks and meet PCI-standard requirements for appliances with integrated wireless.

WatchGuard Technologies Launches Industry’s First Enterprise-Level Unified Threat Management Security Solution Designed for Home and Small Offices

WatchGuard Firebox T10 extends enterprises’ ability to protect the ‘new’ network perimeter

Kuala Lumpur – March 14, 2014 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a leader in integrated security platforms, today announced the WatchGuard Firebox® T10 Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution, a network security appliance that allows enterprises to extend powerful network security to small office home office (SOHO) environments.  With 70 percent of high-value employees working at home at least once a week , the new solution allows network administrators to ensure robust protection of employees who are often managing the companies’ most critical intellectual property.  The Firebox T10 features WatchGuard’s cloud-based RapidDeploy capability, which instantly self-configures and begins reporting back to the administrator’s central console by simply plugging in the appliance.

“It’s no secret that attackers go for the weakest link when trying to get into a corporate network, and this is often a home office or small office user. Yet, many organisations continue to rely on little or no security,” said Mike Jude, senior analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The ability to leverage the power of a UTM solution, like the Firebox T10, in remote locations and manage them from a single, central console, gives IT a powerful tool for administering and enforcing policy. And, it gives them a clear understanding of what’s happening across their network – sum total.”

According to a recent global WatchGuard survey of IT professionals , more than 82 percent allow employees to access the corporate network from a small office or home office location. However, nearly 30 percent do not require a gateway security device. For those that do, only 23 percent require users to use security products similar to those used in the corporate headquarters, with features such as Intrusion Prevention, AntiVirus, Data Loss Prevention, Application Control, AntiSPAM, and more.

In the same study, WatchGuard also found that 56 percent feel basic VPN access provides the needed protection against today’s SOHO threat landscape. WatchGuard’s Vice President of Asia Pacific, Mr. Scott Robertson, says that VPN access is not complete security.  “VPN access has long been the standard for protecting communications for home-based employees in Malaysia,” said Robertson.  “However, if your endpoint device is not protected at the same level as your enterprise network, the VPN tunnel simply provides an open window into your business.  You need to protect both, and the Firebox T10 is designed to make that easy and cost effective.”

Designed for organisations of all sizes, Robertson emphasised the FireboxT10’s relevance for the Malaysian market, of which small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) made up 97.3 percent out of 662,939 establishments on record, and contributing some 32.5 percent to the country’s GDP.  

“Organisations now face a loophole whereby the new network perimeter now sits at the home office and becomes the target for cyber-crimes. As such, more and more SMBs are now being targeted as a means to penetrate larger network ecosystems. To cyber criminals, size does not matter. Hence, the FireboxT10 will help companies of all sizes achieve better defenses without leaving large dents in their budgets nor complicated systems to handle,” added Robertson.

As the Firebox T10 rolls out to the market, WatchGuard anticipates the small, cost-effective solution will also appeal to customers seeking full UTM protection for mobile kiosks and carts, such as those used in retail and health care environments, that regularly handle credit cards and personal information – and must meet the same stringent PCI and HIPAA compliance standards as larger offices and businesses.  

Enhanced Visibility, Capability, Speed
The Firebox T10 delivers not only the same powerful UTM capabilities as the company’s larger models, including the rapid deploy functionality, but it also features the company’s new visibility solution, WatchGuard Dimension. This zero-install, cloud ready tool provides real-time security intelligence, and allows administrators to have big-data-style views of key threats and top site usage across an entire user base.  Plus, WatchGuard UTM solutions feature full versions of the industry’s best-of-breed technologies including: AntiSPAM, AntiVirus, and URL filtering.

The Firebox T10 is the industry’s only enterprise-level UTM solution with comprehensive services for the home office at a reasonable price.  Lastly, with the Firebox T10 and the full UTM suite on site, users will not experience the latency normally caused by backhauling traffic thorough the corporate servers to ensure protection.

The WatchGuard Firebox T10 is now available in Malaysia; interested resellers and users are requested to check with their nearest WatchGuard office for availability.

Building Defense Out of Disaster; Learning from the Security Breaches on Point-of-Sale (PoS) Systems

by Scott Robertson, Vice President Asia Pacific, WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

Today’s retail environment has become increasingly more complex and sophisticated. Recently, it has been reported that more consumers in Singapore are willing to use Visa PayWave, of which usage has more than tripled since its introduction to supermarket cash registers last year. This trend has created the demand for more businesses to embrace new technologies quickly, and IT demands continue to increase due to growing risk management concerns and regulatory compliance requirements. Distributed retail environments are particularly challenging. Each endpoint (store) is an attack vector waiting to be exploited.

As real life examples of this, at the end of Year 2013, a security breach on USA-based retailer Target Corporation has discovered the vulnerabilities retailers will have with their Point of Sale (PoS) system if they are not secured correctly.  As a result of the breach, Target’s CIO Beth Jacob has since claimed responsibility and resigned, leaving industry watchers questioning if companies allocate sufficient security funding and resources to prevent such breaches – or would they be better off outsourcing to third party security experts?

These are alarming concerns for the retail industry, however most retail business owners are lacking in expertise as to how they should protect their systems; most believe that a good Anti-Virus is sufficient to mitigate threats. We can learn from history if we pay close enough attention to what it tells us. With that in mind, we shall take a closer look at what the industry knows so far about the Target data breach, so we can try to learn from someone else’s painful experience.

What was stolen and how does it affect the common retailer?
As we know, Target Corporation is an American retailing company, founded in 1902 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company is ranked 36th on the Fortune 500 as of 2013 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The first Target store was opened in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota. Target grew and eventually became the largest division of Dayton Hudson Corporation, culminating in the company being renamed as Target Corporation in August 2000. In early 2013, Target expanded into Canada and now operates over 100 locations through its Canadian subsidiary.

On Dec. 18th, 2013, Brian Krebs (krebsonsecurity.com) reported that sources had informed him Target was investigating a potentially big data breach. Target confirmed the news a day later. Fast forward to 2014, and we now understand that hackers infiltrated Target’s computer systems through a third-party vendor, making its way to store registers across its 1,000 stores. During the breach, attackers stole two distinctly different types of information, both of which serve different purposes to attackers:

1. Credit card magnetic stripe data – They can use this to create fake credit cards for physical purchases, or physical ATM withdrawals (if they can decode the PINs, which is unlikely).

2. Personally Identifying Information (PII) – They have 70 million customer names, numbers, addresses, and emails, which they can start to use for identity theft (though they’d probably have to first get your social security number, too), or they can use the email addresses in future phishing attacks.

As far as the PII is concerned, frankly things like your name, address, phone number, and email are probably already out there. The additional risk on this info due to the Target breach isn’t zero, but it is probably relatively negligible.

The credit card data leak has more severe repercussions though. While the good news is most experts believe the attackers do not have enough information to make unattended purchases, they do have enough data to make a clone copy of your card, which they can try to use to make fraudulent, in-person purchases. Finally, if they do crack the supposedly protected PINs, they could also make ATM withdrawals, like in the big $45 million dollar ATM heist of last year.

What Can Businesses and Retailers Learn from the Target Attack?
Over the past few years, experts in the Infosec field have noticed the steady increase in malware that specifically targets point-of-sale (PoS) systems, and this Target breach illustrates just how popular it’s become with cyber criminals. Since many PoS systems are just Windows or Linux computers, PoS malware looks and acts, for the most part, very much like normal malware… with two distinct differences.

First, it was designed to search the victim computer’s active memory, rather than just searching its file storage system (a technique security folks call RAM scraping). Second, PoS malware is designed specifically to sniff our credit card magnetic stripe data. In other words, it specifically looks for the data PoS systems handle. So, how do you prepare for PoS malware? Here are some of my takeaway and tips:

• Segment your trusted network – In every organization, there are people or assets that have different levels of privilege or sensitivity than others. For instance, there is no reason that someone in your HR department should have network access to your engineers’ source code repositories. By the same token, there is no reason that the computers your employees use to browse the Internet in the break room should be on the same network as the ones your PoS registers are on (and this doesn’t even get into wireless networks).

The good news is many security appliances– be it the legacy firewalls, Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices or Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) – have many physical interfaces, and even VLAN tagging capabilities, which allow you to segment your internal, trusted network more granularly, based on the roles difference users and assets play in your organization. This additional network segmentation allows you to have a “roadblock” where you can enforce explicit policies for what is and isn’t allowed. If you place your PoS systems on a separate network, you can create policies that only allow the specific PoS traffic to these systems. This means any PoS malware trying to ex-filtrate data from your network will have more hurdles to get the data out. For instance, in the Target attack the hackers used good old FTP, which you may decide to block on your PoS network.

• Keeping up to date with more proactive malware detection – Antivirus (AV) technology still relies very heavily on reactive, signature-based detection. However, AV vendors have started implementing more proactive detection technologies, which use techniques like behavior analysis or code emulation to help detect new malware without signatures. Recently, newer malware detection controls have surfaced that use something called virtual execution to run unknown binaries in a fully virtualized Windows environment, in real-time. These solutions are much better at proactively finding previously undiscovered malware by monitoring for suspicious behaviors. If you’re concerned with advanced attacks, like the one Target just went through, you should consider these types of advanced malware detection solutions in the future (and keep an eye on WatchGuard this year).

• Focus your defenses on data – Most of our preventative security controls are focused on protecting machines and devices, and not necessarily on protecting data directly. While we do need to protect the container of data, I also believe we need to spend a bit more time monitoring and protecting our data directly; one being investing in data loss prevention (DLP) technologies that can see sensitive data as it passes your borders. For instance, the DLP service WatchGuard offers can monitor for credit card numbers and magnetic stripe information. In fact, we specifically monitor for this type of data when sent over FTP, which happens to be how Target’s attackers got their loot out the door. DLP is not fool proof—smart attackers might encrypt things to get it past sensors—but it does pose another roadblock, making things harder for the attacker.

• Invest in detection and analytics –The technology that protects us today will eventually get bypassed tomorrow, and even if we had the perfect technological solution, there is still a human element to the security problem, and criminals would still prey on our social weaknesses to infiltrate our networks. If a motivated, persistent, and well-financed attacker wants into your network, he or she will probably find a way over time.

That is why you should focus some of your security efforts on security visibility and analytics solutions this year, such as WatchGuard Dimension™. They can help you quickly identify anomalies or security events on your network, so that your incident response team can immediately research them, and hopefully cut off any attacks in progress, before the thieves make off with the keys to your kingdom.

• Review credit card standards – Countries should update its credit and debit card standards – In his video interview with CNBC, Target’s CEO mentioned an industry-wide problem that I think might be the crux of many of the US’s credit and debit card fraud issues; our continued use of magnetic stripe cards as opposed to the newer, and more secure EMV or “chip and pin” cards. Most of the data stored on magstripe cards are stored in clear text, and you can easily recover or clone the data with a cheap reader. EMV cards actually have small microprocessors on them.

They include cryptographic keys that prove the card is the original, and follow a dynamic authentication process that confirms the validity of both the card and the card reader. In short, EMV makes it much harder for attackers to clone cards and use them for in-person, fraudulent purchases.

The fact of the matter is, any one of us can suffer a breach like Target did. Even if you do all the right things, and implement all the right defenses, everyone is human. A simple mistake can be the hole that lets that persistent advanced attacker in. Rather than blame the victim, we need to find and prosecute the attackers, but also learn from these unfortunate events so that we can make it a little harder for the criminals to succeed next time.

WatchGuard Technologies Extends Ground Breaking Real-Time Network Security Visibility Tool to Microsoft’s Hyper-V Platform

• WatchGuard Dimension now includes unlimited scalability and availability, intuitive reporting enhancements, and new language support
• Sees 28.6 percent year-on-year growth in Malaysia, increasing focus on larger corporations

KUALA LUMPUR – February 2, 2014 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a leader in integrated security platforms, today announced it is enhancing its real-time network security visibility solution, WatchGuard Dimension™, which has already helped the company grow net billings worldwide by 23 percent in Q4, when compared to the fourth quarter of 2012 – a new company record. The new enhancements extend Dimension’s capabilities to support Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform, in addition to VMware, and also increase scalability, availability and visibility.

“The global response we’ve seen from customers using Dimension with our XTM family of unified threat management (UTM) platforms has been unprecedented,” said Scott Robertson, Vice President of Asia Pacific. “In record numbers, customers are using this cloud-based visibility tool to get key insights into security threats and critical trends in their environment.  Although this product has been on the market for less than six months, we’re moving quickly to make new enhancements in response to enthusiastic feedback from users.”

Scott Robertson, Vice President of Asia Pacific.

While WatchGuard continued to see strong global growth with small and medium-sized distributed enterprise customers, the company achieved a 41 percent increase in high-end platform sales as the UTM value proposition continues to penetrate into the larger enterprise space. In Malaysia, the company recently reported a year-on-year growth of 28.6 percent and has plans to expand its portfolio offering to larger corporations. At current, SMEs contribute 60 percent of WatchGuard’s revenue in Malaysia.  The company currently owns 13 percent of the local UTM Firewall market share, according to Frost & Sullivan.

“We’ve been seeing tremendous growth opportunities in the Asian region and Malaysia is no different. We have been a market leader in the SME segment for many years and are now looking to cater our best-of-breed offerings to larger organisations. For many CIOs and IT personnel, Dimension will be a game-changer as they report to management in the boardroom,” added Robertson.

Frank Dickson, principle analyst at Frost & Sullivan, understands the value Dimension brings to the market as well and said, “We did a survey of more than 12,000 information security professionals and 56 percent reported that their organisation has too few information security workers. WatchGuard Dimension is a tool designed to make life easier for security professionals, especially those in the resource constrained mid-market, so they can more quickly distill key information security data into actionable policy creation.”

WatchGuard Dimension is delivered as a free virtual appliance for XTM customers, which simplifies set up. The latest update includes faster access and increased scalability with external and shared database support.  It also improves visibility with dynamic hostname resolution, and native language support for key countries will be available toward the end of Q1.

WatchGuard Technologies Introduces Big Data Visibility Tools and Data Loss Prevention in Latest Network Security Solution

Zero-install, cloud-ready WatchGuard DimensionTM instantly distills ‘oceans of security data’ into key insights and trends

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – October 22, 2013 - WatchGuard Technologies, a global leader in integrated, multi-function network security platforms, today announced a zero-install, public and private cloud-ready network security visibility solution. WatchGuard Dimension TM will come standard with the company’s flagship Unified Threat Management (UTM) platform and provides a suite of visibility and reporting tools that instantly isolates and distills actionable security issues and trends, speeding network professionals’ ability to set meaningful security policies.

“Around the world, network security pros tell us they are drowning in logs of data and find it time consuming – or nearly impossible – to identify key issues on their networks and make proper policy decisions,” said Joe Wang, Chief Executive Officer at WatchGuard Technologies. “In a recent report from the SANS Institutei, only 10 percent of respondents felt confident in their organizations ability to analyze large data sets for security trends, even though 77 percent are collecting logs and monitoring data from systems and security devices. WatchGuard Dimension TM solves this challenge by instantly turning raw network data into actionable security intelligence in the big data visualization style today’s users have come to expect.”

WatchGuard Dimension TM offers users a menu of visibility and reporting options to present the information in the way they find most intuitive.

WatchGuard DimensionTM includes the Executive Dashboard that shows top trends, clients, users and applications, Summary Reporting, which provides a reporting function with more than 70 templates, a Hierarchical TreeMap which filters traffic and draws your attention to critical information and the Global ThreatMap, which features multiple, interactive configurable views on a world map, making it possible to have real-time views of threats per region. For more details, please visit www.watchguard.com/dimension.

Another major highlight includes the addition of WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention solution to the platform. The WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention solution, essentially streamlines compliance with primary regulatory standards in key markets worldwide. Users are able to select from a pre-configured library of over 200 rules that monitors multiple file types, standards and sensitive data. This will allow companies to promptly protect data and prevent costly regulatory violations. The solution has an updated Web User Interface compatible with mobile devices, and tremendous new flexibility in the configuration of VPNs in today’s more complex network environments.

In recent research conducted by WatchGuard, 65% of companies reported still not having a Data Loss Prevention solution in place, despite the potential for organizations to be penalized millions of dollars for losing sensitive data.

"Since 2005, more than 600 million records have been breachedii, and the stakes continue to rise as companies struggle to protect data in the face of increasingly complicated regulatory requirements and numerous file types," said Scott Robertson, Vice President Asia Pacific at WatchGuard. “The positive news for IT professionals is that by choosing a DLP solution that's integrated with UTM, companies can simplify their data protection, while reducing their total cost of ownership for network security by nearly half iii.”

 iSANS Institute, Survey on awareness and use of analytics and intelligence to augment current monitoring practices: https://www.sans.org/press/survey-results-in-analytics-and-intelligence-being-used-but-not-effectively.php 

iiReported data breach statistics from Privacyrights.org (http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach)

iiiGartner Total Cost of Ownership Report (http://www.watchguard.com/tips-resources/whitepapers/total-cost-of-ownership-for-unified-threat-management.asp)

WatchGuard Technologies Inc. appoints ACA Pacific Technology as Distributor in Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - WatchGuard® Technologies Inc., a global leader in network security solutions today announced the appointment of ACA Pacific Technology (S) Pte Ltd and ACA Pacific Technology (M) Sdn Bhd  as authorised distributors in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. This appointment will allow ACA Pacific to distribute comprehensive, award leading WatchGuard network security products through its partners, in support of WatchGuard’s expansion plan to grow its market share in Asia Pacific.

“We’ve just completed a record year in Southeast Asia by growing the WatchGuard enterprise business by over 50%, making this a great time to join forces with ACA Pacific’s valued added distribution team.” said Scott Robertson, Vice President Asia Pacific, WatchGuard Technologies. “This new relationship will bring significant opportunity for our partners to leverage ACA Pacific’s service and support model and we’re looking forward to an even more successful year ahead.”

Since 1996, WatchGuard® Technologies, Inc. has been the advanced technology leader of business security solutions, providing mission-critical protection to hundreds of thousands of businesses in Singapore, Malaysia and several other countries worldwide. The WatchGuard family of wired and wireless unified threat management (UTM) appliances, messaging, content security and SSL VPN remote access solutions provide extensible network, application and data protection, as well as unparalleled network visibility, management and control. WatchGuard products are backed by WatchGuard LiveSecurity® Service, an innovative support, maintenance, and education program. WatchGuard works on a 100% Channel based sales system in which ACA Pacific will be an important part of.

“We are confident that sales potential in Singapore and Malaysia is high, given the increasing volume of threats and evolving security landscape in South-East Asia. WatchGuard complements the other products in our portfolio, and allows us to offer best-of-breed security solution in an UTM appliance.” said Mark Gill, Managing Director of ACA Pacific.

ACA Pacific Technology is an established IT Marketing and Value-Added Distribution Company founded in 1986. Serving the Asia-Pacific region for more than 20 years, their forte is in selecting and integrating the “Best-of-Breed” software and hardware to meet changing business dynamics. ACA Pacific will be working closely with WatchGuard Technologies in providing the required order fulfillment, training and needs for the resellers in both regions with immediate effect.

WatchGuard Reveals Top Security Predictions for 2013

Cyber Attacks Resulting in Human Death, Android Pick-Pocketing Attempts and Rise in Browser-Infecting Malware All Forecasted Next Year

Kuala Lumpur, 18 December 2012 - WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader in manageable business security solutions, today revealed its annual security predictions for 2013. Assembled by WatchGuard’s security research analysts, the list reveals an uptick in emerging cyber threats and an increased focus by governments to fight back through legislation. While the security industry is predicted to focus on “strike back” measures, WatchGuard predicts these actions will be ineffective and ultimately unviable for most organizations.

"2012 was an eye-opening year in cyber security as we saw the number of new and more sophisticated vulnerabilities rise, impacting individuals, businesses and governments," said WatchGuard VP for Asia Pacific, Scott Robertson. "This is a year where the security stakes reach new heights, attacks become more frequent and unfortunately more damaging as many organizations suffer attacks before taking measures to protect themselves from the bad guys."

WatchGuard's 2013 security predictions include:

A Cyber Attack Results in a Human Death
WatchGuard hopes it is wrong in this prediction. But with more computing devices embedded in cars, phones, TVs and even medical devices, digitally dealt death is not only possible, it's plausible. Security is still often an afterthought when developing innovative technical systems. Criminals, hacktivists, and even nation-states are launching increasingly targeted cyber-attacks, resulting in the destruction of physical equipment. Most recently, a researcher even showed how to wirelessly deliver an 830 volt shock to an insecure pacemaker, proving that digital attacks can have a real-world impact.

In addition, there have been a series of cases where cyber-bullied victims decided to end their lives having been subject to some daunting cyber experience. Either their deepest, darkest secret revealed, feelings tormented, profile abused, or anything humiliating, leaving the victims emotionally scarred with no last resort but to take their own lives.

Malware Enters the Matrix through a Virtual Door
Last year was the first real-world instance of malware that sought out virtual machines (VMs) and infected them directly. Today, there is an emergence of malicious code that can recognize when it's running in a virtual system and can act accordingly. In 2013, WatchGuard predicts attackers will create even more VM-targeted malware. It will be designed to take advantage of weaknesses found in many virtual environments, while attempting to avoid virtualized automatic threat detection systems.

It’s Your Browser - Not Your System - that Malware Is After
WatchGuard anticipates a steep rise in browser-infecting malware in 2013. With increased adoption of cloud services like online banking, a great deal of personal and sensitive data passes through web browsers. Many antivirus solutions are focused on catching traditional malware which infects an operating system and aren't as effective at detecting browser-based infections. Now, a new type of malware has emerged. Sometimes called a Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) or browser zombie, it arrives as a malicious browser extension, plugin, helper object, or piece of JavaScript. It doesn't infect the whole system; instead it takes complete control of a browser and runs whenever the victim surfs the web.

Strike Back Gets a Lot of Lip Service, but Does Little Good
"Strike back," which refers to launching a counter-offensive against cyber hackers will receive a lot of attention but won't be implemented in most organizations according to WatchGuard. "Strike backs" can include filing lawsuits, launching cyber espionage campaigns, or even launching counter cyber-attacks against attackers. WatchGuard anticipates most organizations won't implement these measures given the jurisdictional challenges of digital attacks which bounce through several countries. Plus, criminals have the ability to plant "false flags" in malware, tricking victims and authorities into thinking someone else is behind the attack.

We'll Pay for Our Lack of IPv6 Expertise
Next year, WatchGuard expects to see an increase in IPv6-based attacks and IPv6 attack tools. While the IT industry continues to be slow at adopting IPv6 into their networks, most new devices ship IPv6-aware and can create IPv6 networks on their own. Many IT professionals don't have a deep understanding of IPv6's technicalities, yet they have IPv6 traffic and devices on their networks. This also means most administrators haven't implemented any IPv6 security controls, opening the door to attackers looking to exploit unprotected weaknesses.

Android Pick Pockets Try to Empty Mobile Wallets
Based on the following three factors, WatchGuard expects to see at least one vulnerability, even if just a proof-of-concept, that allows attackers to steal money from Android devices.

Mobile malware is skyrocketing. 
Cyber criminals are targeting Android devices more than any other because of the platform's openness.
People are increasingly using mobile devices for online payments. Plus, many vendors, including Google, are starting to launch Mobile Wallets, which attaches credit cards to mobile devices.

An Exploit Sold on the "Vulnerability Market" Becomes the Next APT
WatchGuard expects that at least one auctioned-off zero day exploit will emerge as a major targeted attack this year. Vulnerability markets or auctions are a new trend in information security, allowing so-called "security" companies to sell zero day software vulnerabilities to the highest bidder. While they claim to "vet" their customers and only sell to NATO governments and legitimate companies, there are few safeguards in place to prevent nefarious entities to take advantage.

Important Cyber Security-Related Legislation Finally Becomes Law
In 2013, expect the U.S. government to pass at least one new cyber security act, which will likely impact private organizations. The U.S. government has been trying to pass cyber security bills that give the president and various government agencies some control over what happens in the event of cyber-attack on U.S. infrastructure. The government also wants more cooperation among private infrastructure organizations and U.S. intelligence agencies. Many are pressing for the government to enact more detailed cyber crimes laws, which may help prosecute digital crimes. On top of that, some organizations are lobbying for tougher digital IP enforcement, which privacy advocates often oppose. While 2012 proved to be a difficult year for passing new cyber legislation, WatchGuard expects this year to be different.

As for Malaysia, the available cyber laws include Digital Signature Act 1997, Telemedicine Act 1997, Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 and Computer Crimes Act 1997. There is also the yet to be enforced Personal Data Protection Act, but in the interim, complaints can be lodged to Personal Data Protection Department.

WatchGuard 保护苹果用户

提供天衣无缝和高度安全的数据档案加码隧道，让为苹果iPhone、iPad及其它iOS仪器安全连接至WatchGuard 新一代防火墙

吉隆坡2011年10月24日讯 – 引领全球商业保安解决方案的WatchGuard® Technologies今日推介了其全新、特别为使用Apple® iOS的仪器而设的保安科技。有了这项科技， WatchGuard 为iPhone®、iPad® 以及iPod touch® 的用户提供绝佳的保护之余，也为网络管理者高超的管理方式，并可监控和防卫这些仪器、资讯及应用程式。“管理和防卫消费科技对于商业来说是一项艰巨的挑战，尤其是越来越多公司雇员都把个人手机带至企业的资讯科技环境当中,” WatchGuard 市场推广副总监 Eric Aarrestad表示。“能够透过WatchGuard 保安器让 iOS 仪器安全地连接至互联网，网络管理者将可容许员工使用这些仪器，因为企业的网络、应用程式以及资料档案已获得妥善保护。”

WatchGuard – 手机保安更为简易
手机用户经常需透过高风险地带，如免费公用Wi-Fi 热点或酒店网络以连接至企业的网络资源。透过IPSEC建立流动虚拟个人网络 (VPN) ，使用iOS 仪器的WatchGuard客户可在任何地方建立快速及简易的VPN连接至WatchGuard XTM 防火墙。这举动将建立起一条加了保安码的隧道，能够确保从iOS 仪器连接至企业网络及其它防火墙背后资源的档案安全性。此外，这也将让防火墙及保安政策给予手机用户使用权限，意味着使用iOS 仪器的WatchGuard 客户将可使用门户防毒、预防入侵及其它保安服务，阻挡骇客、间谍软件、恶意软件等威胁。

WatchGuard 网络保安 – 可扩展、个人化的UTM 解决方案
WatchGuard 一系列的可扩展威胁管理 (XTM) 保安解决方案融合了主要的保安功能，如状态包防火墙、VPN、防垃圾邮件、防病毒、内容过滤及预防入侵等，都可一站式地简易管理。融合了这些基本保安功能，能简化保安目标，减低成本及置放和管理的时间。它们可扩展并个人化的设计，使客户可按各自的网络及资讯科技环境的需求，选择最佳的保安功能。

新一代防火墙科技
WatchGuard 所研发的新一代防火墙，可提供主要的保安功能，阻挡各种新型攻击。WatchGuard XTM 解决方案可辨识应用程式，并按个人或群组用户提供程序监控。这使得管理人员可完全了解他们的网络、服务、应用程式及用户活动，大力提高保安措施，并执行准确、有效的保安政策。

价格与货源
全新的 WatchGuard iOS 仪器支援免费让现有签购LiveSecurity的 WatchGuard 顾客使用。此产品将于2011年第4季于全球发行。

WatchGuard Protects Apple Users

Provides Seamless and Highly Secure Data Encryption Tunneling for Apple iPhone, iPad and other iOS Devices to WatchGuard Next-Generation Firewalls

KUALA LUMPUR – October 11, 2011 - WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader of business security solutions, today unveiled their new security technology designed specifically for Apple® iOS-enabled devices. By doing so, WatchGuard provides mobile users unparalleled protection for their iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® data, while giving network administrators a superior way to manage, monitor and secure mobile devices, information and applications.

“The issue of managing and securing consumer technologies is a real challenge for businesses, especially as more and more employees bring personal devices into their corporate IT ecosystem,” said Eric Aarrestad, Vice President of Marketing at WatchGuard. “By offering a way to securely connect iOS devices with WatchGuard security appliances, administrators can say ‘yes’ to their employees, while knowing their corporate networks, applications and data are safe and secure.”

WatchGuard – Making Mobile Security Easy

Mobile users often need to connect to corporate resources from high-risk locations, such as a free public Wi-Fi hot spots or hotel networks. By creating a mobile virtual private network (VPN) connection via IPSEC, WatchGuard customers with iOS devices will be able to create fast and easy VPN connections from anywhere to their WatchGuard XTM firewall appliance. By doing so, an encrypted tunnel is created, which secures data traffic from an iOS device to the corporate network and other behind-the-firewall resources. Furthermore, this allows firewall policies and protections to be applied to authorized mobile users, which means WatchGuard customers with iOS devices will gain the benefits of gateway anti-virus, intrusion prevention and other security services to keep out hackers, spyware, malware and more.

WatchGuard Network Security – Extensible, Tailored UTM Solutions

WatchGuard’s line of extensible threat management (XTM) security solutions consolidates essential security functions, such as stateful packet firewall, VPN, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-virus, content filtering and intrusion prevention in one easy to manage appliance. The consolidation of these requisite security functions simplifies the security and compliance goals by reducing costs and time to deploy and manage. Due to their extensible and customizable design, customers can select security functions that best meet their network and IT environment.

Next-Generation Firewall Technology

WatchGuard develops next-generation firewall capabilities that are essential to protect against new forms of attack. WatchGuard XTM solutions offer the ability to identify applications and provide granular control based on individual users or groups. This gives administrators full contextual awareness and understanding of their networks, services, applications and user activities, which facilitates high security and accurate and effective policy enforcement.

Pricing & Availability
The new WatchGuard iOS mobile support will be available for free to WatchGuard customers with current LiveSecurity subscriptions. It will be available worldwide Q4, 2011.