Radware Security Appliance Targets Hybrid Attacks

Networking and security vendor Radware announced Tuesday the release of APSolute Attack Prevention, an appliance designed to counter a variety of hybrid threats. Like its other products, APSolute is designed for the company's target market of e-commerce Web sites, service providers and large enterprises. It is backed by Radware's research and security update services.

Radware said the device can help counter the growing number of blended attacks, some involving vulnerabilities that only attackers seem to know about. In anattack against Google discovered this year, for example, attackers reportedly used an undocumented vulnerability when they emailed PDF files to employees at targeted companies.

The PDF files deposited backdoor Trojan software on the employees' PCs, and apparently operated for months before being detected.

"We are witnessing -- through the widespread attacks on enterprises and governments -- a distinct change in the threat landscape. Cybercriminals and hackers are using attack vectors that employ not just one but multiple threat types and don't always exploit known vulnerabilities," said IDC's Charles Kolodgy, research vice president for security products, in a statement.

Radware's approach to this problem is to secure the network using single appliances -- switching devices -- that combine hardware and software to provide security, as well as "essential monitoring, reporting, and management capabilities, followed by expert services," to create more synchronized defenses, said Kolodgy.

APSolute Attack Prevention includes an upgraded version of Radware's DefensePro, which combines an intrusion prevention system, network behavior analysis and denial-of service protection, "running fully synchronized on a single platform," said Ron Meyran, marketing director of security products for Radware.

It also includes the APSolute Vision tool, a unified management system that provides monitoring, forensics, and reporting across multiple tools and devices, "to detect hybrid network attacks and fight them -- [whereas] individually these tools could provide limited or no protection at all," said Meyran.

Finally, the product includes an Emergency Response Team service "for immediate, hands-on assistance for customers under attack," he said.

APSolute Attack Prevention is built on Radware's OnDemand Switch, which the company said provides throughout of up to 12Gbps, as well as two separate hardware components for preventing denial-of-service attacks and applying signature-based security protection.