Barracuda Web Security Gateways now available in the 200 through 1000 series provide web content filtering as well as access and advanced threat protection, and are available as physical appliances, virtual appliances, or as a SaaS.
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Cisco Secure Web Appliance
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Cisco Web Security Appliance [WSA]), powered by Cisco Talos, protects by automatically blocking risky sites and testing unknown sites before allowing users to link to them, helping with compliance. It is available models S690, S390, and S190.
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Symantec Edge Secure Gateway
Score 4.0 out of 10
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Symantec Secure Web Gateway (SWG) protects organizations across the web, social media, applications, and mobile networks. SWG acts as a proxy between users and the internet to identify malicious websites and payloads and to control access to sensitive content. SWG solutions consolidate a broad feature-set to authenticate users, filter web traffic, identify cloud application usage, provide data loss prevention, deliver threat prevention, and ensure visibility into encrypted traffic.
For a larger organization, this is a must. It provides insight into what the users are doing online and most malicious sites will no longer be accessible if access is denied. This can also give access to non-work related sites, but in a limited capacity, based on user or time of day. Though a smaller company would benefit from the features, it may be cost prohibitive.
We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.
In conjunction with Active Directory, we can allow or deny access to the internet very quickly. We can also determine the level of access to the internet.
To satisfy our executive requirements, we can provide regular reports on internet usage.
I think that the interface could need updates to adapt it to a much more current system, achieve quick access to necessary tools and adapt the platform to a much more customizable and comfortable system to work with.
It is undoubtedly a platform that is worth having, however, the license costs could be better adjusted to small businesses so that it can be accessed more easily.
It could be a bit complex to use, the use of codes is quite extensive, it could be adjusted to something much more practical but just as efficient.
On occasion, content analysis needs some tweaking. Specifically, when huge files our downloaded.
For our organization using cloud-based applications and services is very discouraged.
However, the universe seems to be trending towards cloud-based offerings.
It may be reassuring if Symantec ProxySG and Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG) could enhance protection in dealing with cloud services, particularly in protecting data.
There are a lot of settings you can adjust. The web log is easy to use. If a user is having issues accessing a website, you can go in and see what's being blocked and why. After that, you can make adjustments fairly easy. The GUI is easy to navigate and updating the software is a simple click of a button.
Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.
Barracuda support have also been excellent when we have had to contact them. The only time we had a hardware issue on a device (and that device was about 8 years old) it was replaced within about 24 hours of reporting it. Generally there has not been much need to contact their support, as once the device is in and set up, it just works.
Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.
We have submitted support request to Symantec ProxySG and Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG). In all cases, responses have been timely, and very comprehensive.
The support staff is very knowledgeable and does not hesitate to involve expert resources as required.
We have never had an unsolved case with Symantec ProxySG and Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG).
SonicWall, Barracuda NG Firewall, and WatchGuard provides Content Filtering, but are primarily firewalls with Content Filtering features. The Web Filter is a dedicated appliance with more storage space and better reporting of users.
At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.
Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.
With the advent of the Symantec ProxySG and Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG), we have reduced by 95% the number of internal security incidents and events.
As a result, we have reduced the effort and cost of investigating security incidents.
Knock on wood, as a result, and we have never had any data or security breaches.
