WatchGuard Teams with AVG for Anti-Virus Protection

<p>Sydney, 3 November 2009 – WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader of business security and connectivity solutions, today announced that it is teaming with AVG Technologies, developers of the world’s most popular free anti-virus software, to provide WatchGuard unified threat management (UTM) customers with comprehensive and cutting-edge anti-virus protection.</p>
<p>“Viruses and other forms of malware are among the leading causes of lost data, corrupted PCs, damaged applications, and loss of productivity,” said Scott Robertson, Regional Director ANZ, WatchGuard Technologies. “WatchGuard selected AVG so that our customers would have a no-compromise gateway anti-virus solution to best protect their networks, applications and data.”</p>
<p>Recently, analysts have reported that as much as 60 percent of corporate data resides on unprotected desktops and laptops, and on average, these businesses are hit with approximately 113 viruses per month for every 1,000 PCs owned. Therefore, by having anti-virus capabilities at the gateway, businesses can dramatically reduce PC infection rates before individual end-user computers can be infected within their networks.</p>
<p>Additionally, WatchGuard and AVG point out that anti-virus protection is only as good as the latest software update. A recent IT survey showed that only 73 percent of users update their virus definition files regularly. With WatchGuard and AVG, businesses automatically obtain immediate virus definition updates so that protection is always as current as possible.</p>
<p>“It’s great that WatchGuard are now delivering superior protection against zero-day threats by offering their clients the extra protection layers delivered by AVG’s award-winning software,” said Lloyd Borrett, Marketing Manager, AVG (AU/NZ). “With the optional AVG security layers in place, the WatchGuard security appliances truly become unified threat management devices.”</p>
<p>WatchGuard Solutions with AVG - The Ultimate in Defense-in-Depth Protection</p>
<p>All WatchGuard Firebox and XTM multifunction firewalls have the ability to deliver high-speed deep packet inspection, stateful packet inspection and proxy-based protection. This creates the optimal foundation for a defence-in-depth security architecture. Adding to this, WatchGuard provides gateway anti-virus for businesses that want to foster a virus-free work environment right from the entry point of the network.</p>
<p>The AVG engine uses a combination of known virus detection and heuristic analysis to scan e-mail and web traffic at the gateway. This provides front-line defence and protection against viruses, worms, spyware, rogueware and trojans.</p>
<p>SMTP and POP3 traffic is scanned at the gateway to stop threats before they infiltrate network resources, such as servers or other computers. Suspect e-mail can be flagged and sent into a quarantine, where an administrator can restrict access or allow users to review quarantined files through automatic e-mail alerts. Compressed and encoded files attached to e-mails can be decompressed for inspection, with comprehensive support for popular compression types, including ZIP, TAR and GZIP.</p>
<p>“With more than 80 million PCs protected worldwide, AVG commands an authoritative and substantive lead in protecting businesses and their assets from pernicious viruses,” said J.R. Smith, CEO, AVG Technologies. “The combination of AVG's world-class malware protection with the WatchGuard family of UTM devices will allow enterprises to more effectively manage the risks and issues commonly associated with employee productivity. This partnership between industry leaders delivers customers unmatched data protection and control of their IT assets.”</p>
<p>Pricing and Availability</p>
<p>AVG gateway anti-virus protection is available now as an optional security subscription on all new WatchGuard unified threat management appliances that utilise the WatchGuard Fireware XTM operating system. WatchGuard gateway anti-virus service starts at $187 per year with no per user license fee limitation. More information is available at www.watchguard.com</p>

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