Firewall – MEC Networks Corporation

Forcepoint Recognized As A Visionary For 3rd Year In A Row, In The Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant For Network Firewalls

MEC Digital — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 06:21:46 +0000

For the 3rd year in a row, Forcepoint is once again recognized as a Visionary in the Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls

Third time’s a charm, the old saying goes. And, for the third year in a row, Gartner has named Forcepoint a Visionary in their 2019 Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls for the ability to execute and its completeness of vision. With Forcepoint NGFW, we particularly want to assist distributed organizations to better connect and defend their remote offices, stores and branches so that they can take advantage of the cloud to drive bigger productivity and lower costs.

To set the stage for its analysis this year, Gartner begins its report* by highlighting a key industry trend: “With firewall providers embedding multiple security features in firewalls and enabling integration and automation capabilities with other security products, firewalls are evolving into network security platforms.”

We strongly agree. And while each vendor talks about having a platform, we see 3 components as being of crucial importance:

1.) Enterprise connectivity – Digital transformation is driving distributed organizations to make additional use of cloud apps and direct web connections for sites and users. as one of the primary vendors to assemble Multi-Link VPN, Secure SD-WAN capabilities, and advanced clustering in our network firewalls, we see ensuring that users and information may be connected and guarded robustly as two sides of a similar coin.

2.) Extensible Security – As organizations disrupt the way they connect their remote sites and users, old ways of securing those connections should change. Customers are progressively telling us they’re searching for tight integration among their network (NGFW), web (SWG), and cloud app (CASB) security systems—no matter where their users are operating.

3.) Management at Scale – Some of the less-frequently mentioned areas of excellent security platforms can be summarized by the quantity of effort it takes to urge sites and users connected and protected. Through experience managing thousands of websites from a single pane of glass, we’ve found that capabilities like zero-touch provisioning and interactive analysis for quicker incident response are crucial to efficiency in global as well as local operations.

It’s an honor to be referred to as a Visionary. We created Forcepoint to bring a brand new approach to the cybersecurity industry—to help customers to break free from the endless cycle of throwing billions of dollars at threat once threat without very feeling any safer. but even more necessary than vision is the ability to turn good concepts into effective solutions. That’s why our human-centric approach to security and our new cloud-based platform is designed specifically to enable enterprises and government agencies to better understand user behavior and intent so they can more efficiently and securely bring people and information along.

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SonicWALL Secures Hybrid Clouds

MEC Networks Corporation — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 08:09:15 +0000

SonicWALL Expands Capture Cloud Platform to Include Zero-Touch Deployment, Secure SD-WAN, Personalized Threat Intelligence, Next-Gen Virtual Firewall for Public Cloud

Recently, SonicWall introduced new Capture Cloud Platform capabilities that encompass Zero-Touch Deployment and Secure SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) designed for distributed enterprises and businesses with hybrid cloud environments. The organization additionally announced enhancements to the Capture Security Center with personalized Risk Meters that supply company-specific, real-time threat intelligence and danger scoring, as well as Hyper-V, Azure, and AWS guide for its virtual firewall series.

“Organizations are invested in hybrid cloud strategies where they’re able to harness the power of both public and private clouds, but they require solutions that help simplify and secure their cloud migration initiatives,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “Whether they are pursuing the benefits of a vendor’s specific capabilities, looking to reduce the cost of hiring staff or seeking to reach compliance standards, SonicWall helps protect their migration while simultaneously giving more visibility and control of their environments.”Whether they are pursuing the benefits of a vendor’s specific capabilities, looking to reduce the cost of hiring staff, or seeking to reach compliance standards, SonicWall helps protect their migration while simultaneously giving more visibility and control of their environments.

Reducing Cost with Zero-Touch Deployment

SonicWall Zero-Touch Deployment permits companies to rapidly and securely configure firewall hardware at new locations without requiring superior and costly on-site personnel. Once new merchandise is delivered online in remote locations, administrators can manage nearby and distributed networks through a single pane-of-glass the usage of Capture Security Center, SonicWall’s flagship cloud-based management and analytics SaaS platform.

“We are very excited about the recent addition of Zero-Touch and SD-WAN from SonicWall. Cerdant has been deploying SonicWall next-generation firewalls for over 15 years and these new additions will allow us to deliver even faster deployments for customers,” said Cerdant Vice President of Technology and Operations Joshua Skeens. “The agile and simplified deployment capabilities will help reduce labor costs with centralized cloud management.”

To reduce wire clutter and the complexity associated with PoE injectors and switches, the company is introducing SonicWall TZ300P and TZ600P unified threat management (UTM) firewalls that provide power directly to connected PoE/PoE+ enabled devices, such as wireless access points, point-of-sale (POS) terminals, printers, cameras and other IP devices.

Leveraging Public Networks Securely

With sturdy and tested security provided by using SonicWall, SD-WAN can be leveraged to use readily-available, low priced public web services to reduce the value and complexity generally related with constructing allotted personal networks based totally on MPLS technology.

“SD-WAN is a highly effective technology for distributed organizations like retailers, banks, manufacturers and campuses to simultaneously improve performance and reliability while reducing operational overhead,” said 451 Research analyst Mike Fratto. “However, the use of the direct, connected public internet for business opens up security challenges for organizations.

“For SD-WAN to be a viable alternative to private WANs, enterprises need to ensure they have the same level of inspection and enforcement at the branch and remote sites as they have at the data center. Integrated security features with SD-WAN are table stakes for most enterprises adopting the technology.”

A new capability of SonicOS 6.5.3, the operating system for SonicWall next-generation firewalls, SonicWall Secure SD-WAN permits distributed organizations to safely set up and join branches and remote sites for sharing data and improving the resiliency and overall performance of applications and services. SonicWall Secure SD-WAN ensures the constant performance and availability of business-critical and SaaS applications with intelligent failover, application-based load balancing and first-class of provider (QoS) capabilities.

Personalized Threat Intelligence, Risk Scoring

The rising increase of applications, endpoints, mobile gadgets, and databases also capacity a large assault floor for cybercriminals. To reduce it, the SonicWall Capture Security Center Risk Meters provider affords companies and SMBs with data-driven evaluation about evolving chance vectors that include networks, web, clouds, applications, endpoints, mobile devices, and databases.

Because no two businesses are alike, SonicWall Risk Meters deliver personalized threat records and chance ratings that are adapted to individual conditions and environments, promoting immediately and particular shielding actions.

To better guide business and security goals in a more well-timed manner, computed threat scores and chance levels are constantly updated based on live danger records relative to present protection capabilities. Organizations can leverage their scores when performing protection effectiveness planning, coverage and budgeting decisions.

Virtual Firewall Extended to Cloud Deployments

The SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform continues to deliver security for businesses of any size and now extends next-generation virtual firewall capabilities to cloud deployments, including Hyper-V, Azure, and AWS, with the NSW Firewall Series.

As an added benefit, new and existing customers using SonicWall NSA or NSsp next-generation firewalls and who also have active Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS) or Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite (CGSS) services, will receive a SonicWall NSA firewall for one year at no additional cost.

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ICTip #16: Keeping Your Software Up-to-Date

MEC Networks Corporation — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 02:00:48 +0000

The importance of keeping your software up to date

Being outdated is an unpleasant feeling. In technology, software updates are much more critical and can cause real harm when not given proper attention.

By not being up to date, you are allowing yourself to be vulnerable to hacking, having your data are taken, and other mischievous and malicious acts. That’s right! When it comes to antivirus software (or hardware), the functionality is the same. What differs one from the other is their signature database. Every application all around the world has signatures, and these signatures grant the antivirus the ability to have control over it (allow, block, monitor, etc.).

This is one of the reasons why Fortinet still sits at the top. It is due to their capacity to keep your firewall’s database up to date – automatically. As they promote the 365 x 24 x 7 updates, they do deliver.

Emerging threats and how to deal with them

Ever heard about WannaCry Ransomware or simply WCry? Ransomware is the most lethally dangerous threat in your network to date. Once it enters your network, any type of data that you have, client database, computer files, your RPG saved game, even your high school pictures. It can encrypt these and have them unreadable. You’ll be asked to pay for decryption afterward. And the biggest catch, if you do not comply within 24 or 48 hours, your files will be permanently deleted. Again, one of its attributes as Ransomware is that its signature is not registered. To counter this, we make use of the technology we call, FortiSandbox, or simple Sandboxing. It filters this unregistered application and identifies it thus, creating a signature and making it blockable. You may deal with it by having an AntiVirus that is connected to a Sandbox, FortiClient, it’s free by the way.

Why humans/users are the the biggest vulnerability to a network + tips

Passwords. Social Engineering. Phishing.

We are now in the age of having every answer to our questions, ideas for new projects, strategies for business because they are one .. click .. away. As people continue to explore the internet, there are a certain few who takes advantage of this, getting their details, bank accounts, social media accounts, we call it identity theft, and their method, falls under Social Engineering, by exploiting humans’ curiosity, because why not?

Aside from protecting your network from the outside, you still have to protect your network from the inside whether the people (intentionally or unintentionally) do it. To prevent this from happening, Companies set strict firewall policies, sometimes, totally blocks access to non-business-related websites as a result you will have a more secured environment and more focused and productive employees. This is very similar to what Fortinet is trying to create with its Security Fabric. An ecosystem that can provide you total visibility of your network from inside and out.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Paolo Reucaza, Technical Consultant for Network Security

We distribute:

Fortinet

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of the ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #15: Upgrades and Refresh Cycles

MEC Networks Corporation — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 02:00:42 +0000

Tips on firewall software upgrades and refresh cycles:

How often does your company go through hardware and software refreshes?
Be sure to confirm with the vendor what its patch program is, when it goes through major software refreshes and how often a forklift (new hardware) upgrade is required.
Security issues can arise from slow patch cycles, and industry-laggard issues can result from slow software refreshes.
On the other hand, rapid software or hardware refreshes can raise TCO significantly, so the right balance needs to be struck.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • Sonicwall

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ICTip #11: User Groups and Community Support

MEC Networks Corporation — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 02:02:20 +0000

Does the vendor have a community website or user groups where users can help each other?
Are there annual conferences?

The ability to network with peers and hear how they’re using the product can greatly increase the value your organization gets from your NGFW.

See Fortinet’s Fuse

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • Sonicwall

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #9: Support Options

MEC Networks Corporation — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 02:00:39 +0000

When selecting a firewall vendor, you have a few important things to remember when it comes to support options.

Do you need multilingual, last-tier (most advanced technically), 24/7 technical support? If so, can the vendor supply it? What is the cost? Don’t forget to ask how high the support calls can go: 24/7 access to a low-level support representative is not the same as being able to get to the last tier during a time of crisis. Find out by asking your local support or distributor.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • Sonicwall

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #7: Integrating Firewall with Other Products

MEC Networks Corporation — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 02:00:20 +0000

Integration with identity services, global intelligence services, and policy management consoles may be a deal-breaker for your organization. It is also critical to consider whether the NGFW can integrate with other systems as well. For example, how will the NGFW integrate with your security information and event management system or network devices such as switches, wireless, surveillance, and all other devices running on an IP Address?

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda

We distribute:

SonicWall • Fortinet

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #4: What’s the Real Cost of Deployment?

MEC Networks Corporation — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 02:00:55 +0000

There’s more to the cost of a firewall purchase than just the list price. Make sure the vendor quote takes into account any professional service time it provides, and factor in your own team’s time to implement the product. NGFWs support more complex rules than other firewalls, and this often translates into needing more admin time to set up and test those rules. Also, does the vendor have package pricing for getting their product up and running in a company like yours?

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet • SonicWall

ICT Month is celebrated every month of June, a celebration commenced in 2008. This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1521 (series of 2008), which declares that “THE MONTH OF JUNE 2008 AND EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER AS “NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)” MONTH”. The conduct of this event is to recognize the contributions of ICT as one of the major sectors for economic growth and, as such, has resolved to fully implement a national ICT program that shall optimize the utilization of ICT.

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ICTip #1: Choosing the Right Type of NGFW Vendor

MEC Networks Corporation — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 03:47:18 +0000

Selecting a next-generation firewall or any large technology investment for that matter is a big decision to make.

In the case of a next-generation firewall (NGFW), the customer must take into consideration both the vendor and the product that will impact the long-term costs of owning and managing the device.

Best-in-class or one-stop shop? Start-up or established vendor?

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and NSSLAB for NGFWs yearly release review and performance test results of several NGFW products like SonicWALL and Fortinet will help you decide the best and most stable NGFW products.

#ICTipsByMEC #ICTMonth2017

— Ronald Penagunda, Solutions Architect

We distribute:

Fortinet

SonicWall

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MEC is Fortinet’s Growth Distributor of the Year

MEC Networks Corporation — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 06:24:41 +0000

Last January 12, 2017, MEC was awarded Growth Distributor of the Year for APAC region during Fortinet’s Accelerate 2017 event held at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Representatives from nearly 700 different partner organizations from over 90 countries attended this year’s Accelerate conference, making it Fortinet’s most successful event ever.

Fortinet 2016 Partner of the Year Award Winners:

FortiHero – Global Partner of the Year
Santa Monica Networks Oy, Finland

Ken Xie, founder, chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fortinet

“I would like to congratulate this year’s winners for their significant achievements in 2016. These partners demonstrated a commitment to deliver the very best cybersecurity solutions and defend their customers against today’s increasingly advanced threat landscape. I would also like to extend my gratitude to all of our partners for their dedication and achievements in 2016. Working together, we have all greatly contributed to a more secure digital future.”

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