Sprawling enterprise applications and the broad, fast-changing attack surface of Web 2.0 necessitate a new approach to firewall security. First generation firewalls were limited to port, protocol, and IP addresses. Today, enhanced next generation McAfee® firewalls let you confidently discover, control, visualize, and protect new and existing applications, using visual analytics and user identity for efficient, effective rules. And to detect complex threats within these applications, we integrate proactive threat intelligence with multiple inspection technologies in one cost-effective, easyto- manage appliance.
Firewalls are traditionally only as strong or as weak as the policies you define. But effective security policies for today's complex Web 2.0 traffic depend on fine-grained understanding that can be hard to come by. You need rapid insight that goes far beyond port and protocol to encompass different web applications and users and the sophisticated threats that target them.
Where in the past you could await signatures, the breakneck pace of threat evolution today demands proactive, predictive diagnosis of risk. Multiple attributes, such as source reputation, content, and behavior, should be assessed to reveal malicious intent before a new threat is confirmed.
It's not enough to predict the threat. Accurate, timely blocking demands concerted action that crosses conventional product silos.
These demands—plus the call to prove compliance—increase the operational burden on the network team. Yet budgets remain under pressure. Something has to change.
The Biggest Firewall Innovation in 15 Years
With version 8 of the McAfee Firewall Enterprise, McAfee reinvents the firewall. Three innovations deliver unprecedented protection at an unheard-of affordability. We combine full application visibility and control, reputation-aware threat intelligence, and multivector attack protection to improve network security while shaving effort and expense.
The firewall solution includes the McAfee Firewall Enterprise appliance family: McAfee Firewall Enterprise Profiler, McAfee Firewall Enterprise Control Center, and McAfee Firewall Reporter.
Today, the weakest link in network security is the application layer. So we have taken the firewall trusted by more ultra-secure environments and added broad application discovery and control. You can now protect new and existing Web 2.0 applications from the risks of data leakage, network abuse, and malicious attacks. With McAfee technology, you can ensure the applications using your network benefit your business.
Discover McAfee AppPrism technology uses the innovative McAfee Firewall Enterprise Profiler to identify all traffic and reveal the applications that are really in use, with helpful context such as source, bandwidth, and destination. By inspecting encrypted application-level traffic, you can eliminate loopholes favored by cyberthieves and attackers.
Control Fine-grained control allows comprehensive enforcement of policy based on business needs. Instead of policies matched just to IP address, port, or protocol, you can now place a user name with a role and a set of applications.
Construct application usage rules that combine attributes such as:
- Business or recreational purpose
- User identity
- Embedded application control
- Whitelisting
- Geo-location
User identity Without visibility into and control over users and the context of their use, firewalls cannot defend against increasingly port-agile, evasive, targeted applications. McAfee Firewall Enterprise applies user-aware rules and control over applications.
When a user connects, the system validates entitlements in real time from your existing user directory. The firewall quickly applies policies mapped to user identity that grant explicit use of an application.
By tracking to the user, rules are granular enough for modern business operation. And identitybased rules make good operational sense. More and more enterprises rely heavily on unified use of user directories and identity management to support access controls. User changes happen once and propagate out. Security policies stay up to date as the user community changes.
Embedded application control Embedded application control gives you the power to tailor rights within an application. For instance, you might allow Yahoo, but block Yahoo IM, or allow IM only for specific user groups, perhaps customer support or sales, or locations, such as the head office.
You can also support appropriate corporate use and blackout policies by specifying when an application can or cannot be used. Rules could allow MySpace use during lunchtime, for example, for customer service teams, while financial applications are not available to anyone via VPN on weekends.
Many exploits try to benefit from the lax security in social networking sites by concealing their payloads within trendy applets. With McAfee, you can allow access to the beneficial elements of sites like Facebook, but still minimize the risk of compromised applications within each site.
Whitelisting For advanced control, application whitelisting lets you explicitly allow only traffic from applications that have been approved as necessary or appropriate. Compared to lengthy blacklists, whitelisting whittles down the number of rules you need to write and maintain.
Geo-location As botnets proliferate through popular social networking applications, it has become more important to be able to lock down rogue applications that attempt to communicate to certain locations. Geo-location lets you cut off this contact to keep your data from exfiltrating and prevent your systems from being used for mischief.
We give you this fine-grained control while making rules development less complex. In fact, there's just one policy in one view. One straightforward console presents the options required to efficiently manage all rules and add defenses. This unified model is especially beneficial over time and across teams, as we also highlight rule interactions and overlaps. With colored fields highlighting potential conflicts, you avoid errors and enhance performance.
Visualize It's time to move from managing rules to managing risk. McAfee Firewall Enterprise Profiler simplifies assessment of network traffic so you can add new applications quickly. Our intuitive visual analytics give you a way to measure the effectiveness of each rule change instantly, so you can tune policies for the maximum benefit.
Rich graphical tools correlate application activities in real time, based on user identity, geo-location, and usage levels. You can easily see who is using what applications. This integrated view lets you exchange hours of due diligence, experimentation, and troubleshooting for just a few clicks. For some users, the biggest advantage is seeing immediately whether or not a problem was really due to the firewall and being able to navigate to its root cause.

Figure 1. McAfee Global Threat Intelligence featuring McAfee TrustedSource allows or blocks traffic based upon reputation.
Protect McAfee AppPrism helps you reduce risks from application-level threats while you optimize use of corporate bandwidth. Behind McAfee AppPrism stands the power of McAfee Labs™. Our threat researchers utilize threat research and intelligence data to continually recognize and assess risk for 31 categories of applications, ranging from anonymizers to video and photo sharing.
By assigning dynamic reputations for sites, senders, and locations, we can block an average 70 percent of undesirable traffic before you ever see it. Because of this capability, it can even spot the subtle command and control (C and C) channel of botnets.
The Only Firewall with Reputation Analysis and Global Threat Intelligence
Only McAfee includes reputation technology in a firewall, and it is just one element of McAfee Global Threat Intelligence. At McAfee, more than 400 researchers collaborate across web, spam, vulnerability, host and network intrusion, malware, and regulatory compliance research. This breadth allows them to characterize every new threat and vulnerability.
Their efforts, informed by more than 100 million sensors around the world, deliver real-time predictive risk analysis to guard you against evolving multifaceted threats.
Unlike old-fashioned firewalls that rely on signatures, automated threat feeds from McAfee Labs keep you up to date without taking your firewall off-line. With the increase in advanced persistent threats like Operation Aurora, McAfee Global Threat Intelligence is the most sophisticated protection you can own, helping you mitigate vulnerabilities, avoid regulatory violations, and lower the cost of remediation.
Multivector Security in One Integrated Appliance
One reason customers choose McAfee is our extensive security and compliance portfolio. Now, we place this might right at your door. Facing off against the complex threats in Web 2.0 applications, exploit cocktails, phishing, and targeted attacks, McAfee Firewall Enterprise now combines multiple crucial threat protections in every firewall appliance.
Before, firewalls were limited to access control and segmentation. Adequate protection required the expense of implementing and maintaining several separate products. Now, one box combines:
- McAfee AppPrism delivers full application discovery and control
- Intrusion prevention
- Global reputation analysis
- URL filtering with McAfee SmartFilter technology
- Encrypted application filtering
- Anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-spam
Our experience building multivector solutions has helped us deliver all these protections without compromising performance or productivity—and without charging extra.
Fine-Grained Control Made Manageable
Reliable security must also be easy to configure. The intuitive McAfee Firewall Enterprise administrative console lets your administrators create rules and selectively apply defenses such as application filters, IPS signatures, and URL filtering from a single screen. New software feature updates are delivered automatically via the Internet, reducing maintenance effort. Simply determine the schedule with a single click.
The McAfee Firewall Enterprise product line includes additional tools for simplifying management: McAfee Firewall Reporter and McAfee Firewall Enterprise Control Center.
Included at no additional cost, McAfee Firewall Reporter software turns audit streams into actionable information. This award-winning security event management (SEM) tool delivers central monitoring, and correlated alerting and reporting. Choose from more than 500 graphical reports to depict network traffic and help meet all major regulatory requirements.
Sold separately, McAfee Firewall Enterprise Control Center offers centralized firewall policy management for multiple McAfee Firewall Enterprise appliances. It lets you maximize operational efficiency, simplify policy control, optimize rules, streamline software updates, and demonstrate regulatory compliance. You can even compare policy configurations on all of your McAfee Firewall Enterprise Control Centermanaged devices to ensure consistency across your network. Robust configuration management lets you centrally track, trace, and validate all policy changes.
Furthermore, McAfee Firewall Enterprise Control Center integrates with McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator® (McAfee ePO™) software, providing it with visibility into firewall health data and reports.
The Most Secure Firewall Hardware Platform
At its core, McAfee Firewall Enterprise runs on the high-speed, high assurance McAfee SecureOS operating system. Patented McAfee Type Enforcement technology secures the OS itself for an unparalleled level of platform security. Perhaps it is why McAfee SecureOS has an unparalleled CERT advisory record: no emergency security patches have ever been required.
The preconfigured operating system security policy prevents compromises, and the entire operating system is compartmentalized so attackers cannot disrupt its work.
These extra steps allowed us to be the first firewall to achieve Common Criteria EAL 4+ certification with US DoD Protection Profile compliance.
Because of our innovation and advanced security, the McAfee Firewall Enterprise protects 15,000 networks around the world, including thousands of government agencies, Fortune 500 organizations, and seven of the top 10 financial institutions. Put us to work protecting you. |