BorderWare Announces SIPassure, The World's Most Comprehensive SIP Firewall.DALLAS & TORONTO -- Enterprise & Carrier Models Designed to Enable Secure VoIP Communications Within Industry Standard Protocol BorderWare Technologies, the benchmark provider of messaging security solutions, today announced SIPassure(TM) SIP Firewall, the world's most comprehensive SIP (Session Initiation Protocol (protocol) Session Initiation Protocol - (SIP) A very simple text-based application-layer control protocol. It creates, modifies, and terminates sessions with one or more participants. Such sessions include Internet telephony and multimedia conferences. It is described in RFC 2543. ) firewall. Initially aimed at the emerging VoIP (Internet telephony) market, SIPassure is a hardened appliance that manages and protects the flow of VoIP-specific SIP communications, enabling enterprises to fully realize the business benefits of deploying VoIP solutions such as reducing long distance costs, utilizing presence-based applications (i.e. find me, follow me) and unified messaging. BorderWare is making available two systems, an enterprise and a carrier model, to select customers. Developed over the past 12 months and designed to sit alongside SIP-based IP PBXs such as Cisco CallManager and Avaya Communications Manager, SIPassure follows the Internet Engineering Task Force (c/o Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), Reston, VA, www.ietf.org) Founded in 1986, the IETF is a non-membership, open, voluntary standards organization dedicated to identifying problems and opportunities in IP data networks and proposing technical solutions to the (IETF See Internet Engineering Task Force. IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force ) SIP standard, and deploys at the network edge or in the DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) A middle ground between an organization's trusted internal network and an untrusted, external network such as the Internet. Also called a "perimeter network," the DMZ is a subnetwork (subnet) that may sit between firewalls or off one leg of a and manages all inbound and outbound SIP sessions. It delivers more functionality and security than existing SIP Session Border Controllers (SBCs), proxies and redirectors. SIPassure: - prevents voice spam, DoS/DDoS protection (RTP (1) (Rapid Transport Protocol) The protocol used in IBM's High Performance Routing (HPR) system. (2) (Realtime Transport Protocol) An IP protocol that supports real time transmission of voice and video. , SIP REGISTRAR), voice mail bombing (vbomb) and packet-level intrusion prevention - provides robust firewall features including stateful inspection with policy-based packet filtering and SIP and RTP message validation - functions as a SIP proxy server, redirect server, and registrar server (IETF RFC (Request For Comments) A document that describes the specifications for a recommended technology. Although the word "request" is in the title, if the specification is ratified, it becomes a standards document. 3261) - functions as an incoming and outgoing proxy, providing integrity checks for malformed mal·formed adj. Abnormally or faultily formed. SIP messages, ensuring that only correctly formatted messages are forwarded - provides NAT (Network Address Translation) An IETF standard that allows an organization to present itself to the Internet with far fewer IP addresses than there are nodes on its internal network. (Network Address Translation) and firewall traversal (RTP proxy) - includes comprehensive reporting and auditing - supports SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) A widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc. for integration with network management frameworks (i.e. HP OpenView, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) Tivoli, etc.) High Security, High-Availability, F5 Partnership As indicated, the BorderWare SIPassure SIP Firewall will be available in two models, aimed at enterprises and carriers. The system architecture for both models is built around BorderWare's S-Core(TM) operating system, which is integral to the Common Criteria EAL EAL English as an Additional Language EAL Evaluation Assurance Level EAL Eastern Airlines EAL Emergency Action Level EAL Environmental Analysis Laboratory EAL Evidence Analysis Library (American Dietetic Association) 4+ security certifications of BorderWare's MXtreme(TM) Mail Firewall and its other proxy-based firewall products. SIPassure will also borrow from the MXtreme failsafe clustering architecture for high-availability (HALO(TM), stateful failover, and cluster management), and further integrates with F5 Network's BIG-IP to manage and shape SIP traffic. "BorderWare clearly understands how its comprehensive messaging security significantly contributes to the availability and overall productivity of business-critical communications," said Erik Giesa, Vice-President of Product Management and Marketing at F5 Networks. "We are pleased that they are extending their existing email-related iControl partnership with F5 Networks to include policy-based support for secure SIP-based applications. Just as the combination of MXtreme and BIG-IP provides an unsurpassed architectural solution for email security and availability, the tandem of SIPassure and BIG-IP will do likewise for SIP applications in carrier and enterprise environments." Threat, Abuse and Disruption Prevention Like HTTP HTTP in full HyperText Transfer Protocol Standard application-level protocol used for exchanging files on the World Wide Web. HTTP runs on top of the TCP/IP protocol. and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The standard e-mail protocol on the Internet and part of the TCP/IP protocol suite, as defined by IETF RFC 2821. SMTP defines the message format and the message transfer agent (MTA), which stores and forwards the mail. , SIP has emerged as the dominant session protocol for real-time Internet-based (IP) communications. It provides communications applications - instant messaging (IM), VoIP, video conferencing, etc. - the convenience and benefits that HTTP provides for web services and SMTP provides for email. However, SIP is also susceptible to similar types of threats that plague HTTP and SMTP. SIPassure is designed to protect SIP-based VoIP applications against Denial-of-Service attacks, session flooding (continuous calling via Internet Protocol), eavesdropping and session hijacking, voice spam, session spoofing and caller impersonation Impersonation Patroclus wore the armor of Achilles against the Trojans to encourage the disheartened Greeks. [Gk. Lit.: Iliad] Prisoner of Zenda, The . "As the SIP-enabled VoIP revolution unfolds, security will become the industry's central concern. Since voice is now just the payload of an IP packet, all the perils that plague enterprise servers exist for the unprotected IP PBX," said Elizabeth Ussher, Vice President, Infrastructure Strategies, META Group. "Imagine the bandwidth havoc of a 'MyDoom' multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold, and you can imagine the scope of the problem. Enterprises must get ahead of the curve by providing a secure environment for SIP-based communications." "The introduction of the SIPassure SIP Firewall embodies BorderWare's 10-year legacy and expertise in application-specific firewalls," said John Alsop, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , BorderWare Technologies. "As the market for email security continues to expand, BorderWare has increasingly become the company of choice, and MXtreme, the product that sets the benchmark. SIPassure is the equivalent of MXtreme for the emerging SIP-based VoIP market, and attests to our vision and leadership in messaging security." About BorderWare Founded in 1994, BorderWare Technologies Inc. is the benchmark provider of messaging security solutions for enterprises and government. BorderWare has more than 6000 customers with systems deployed at various military, intelligence, defense, national security agencies, and corporations worldwide. The company has developed affiliations and partnerships with some of the industry's most prominent companies in Internet infrastructure, security and messaging including Cisco Systems, F5 Networks, Sun Microsystems, RSA Security, Research In Motion (RIM), Symantec and Kaspersky Labs. BorderWare is a private company headquartered in Toronto, Canada with offices in London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Dubai, Ottawa, Dallas, San Jose, New York, and Washington DC. For more information visit http://www.borderware.com or call 1-877-814-7900. (C) 2004 BorderWare Technologies Inc. All Rights Reserved. All company and/or product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. |
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