Independent IT test labs AV-Test GmbH and the Tolly Group have released the results of their joint-effort examination of unified threat management (UTM) products in the SMB space.†
Testing focused on the ability of UTM solutions to stop malware and viruses, which are traditionally the Achilles heel of security solutions for the growing business market.†
Networking solutions provider Netgear is among the first to release the results found for its respective products. The company’s ProSecure family of UTM products was tested by AV-Test GmbH and Tolly Group. Netgear calls the test results of its ProSecure line “superior.”
The tests measured security effectiveness against 3,583 virus and malware samples from the WildList Organization International’s latest list of viruses as well as 60,000 zoo malware samples from AV-Test GmbH.†
Tolly Group founder Kevin Tolly calls the study “revealing,” adding that UTM products for SMBs is generally “very difficult to measure by end users.”
iTeam Technology Associates LLC is an IT consultant and managed services provider out of New York City. Company president Sid Edelstien also considers the tests conducted by AV-Test GmbH and the Tolly Group to valuable to VARs in the SMB space.
“IT security consulting is one of our company’s key practice areas,” he says. “In today’s IT security environment, where the threat landscape is becoming ever more targeted and sophisticated, smaller businesses can no longer afford not to have reliable gateway protection on their network’s perimeter.”
Edelstien adds, “Implementing a ‘multi-tier’ network security architecture is the single most meaningful investment a small business can make toward improving the overall security of its information assets.”
Here are some of the study’s findings:
- ProSecure blocked 100 percent of WildList samples and 90 percent of zoo malware samples.
- Fortinet blocked 81 percent of WildList samples and 29 percent of zoo malware samples.
- SonicWALL blocked between 75 to 81 percent of WildList samples and 35 to 70 percent of zoo malware samples, depending on model.
- Watchguard blocked 32 percent of WildList samples and 20 percent of zoo malware samples
In a recent press release, Netgear attributes the “superior” test results of its ProSecure UTM series to the line’s employment of “more than one million AV signatures.”
In the statement, the company adds, “In addition to providing superior threat protection, the ProSecure UTM series employs a hybrid in-the-cloud approach for spam analysis and URL filtering. Against spam, this approach looks at both the content and header of e-mails for spam determination. Most other UTMs in this category look only at e-mail headers or rely purely on simple RBLs for anti-spam protection.”
Jason Leung is Netgear’s senior product line manager for SMB security. He says it’s the zoo malware results of these tests that are especially rewarding for his company. “While the WildList results speak for themselves, the zoo malware results are particularly important as such older malware is still circulating the globe, wreaking havoc on out-of-date and unprotected computer.”
Vendors, he says, often sacrifice zoo malware catch rates in order to meet price point demands. “Yet,” he says, “mass botnet infestations often employ zoo-malware to infect its targets.”
With 24/7 technical support that connects SMBs directly with security experts, Netgear’s ProSecure UTM10 and UTM25 products resell through partners and VARs at an estimated price starting at $376.
