Ready to Try SonicWall Capture Client for yourself?
Capture Client from SonicWall is the most powerful unified enduser protection strategy currently on the market. Together with SentinelOne, SonicWall has integrated artificial intelligence & machine learning into your security! Featuring continuous behavioral modeling, Capture Client tracks activities, big or small, across your network– file creation & modification, disk & memory scripts, process executions, monitoring of internal app communication; Capture Client keeps a watchful eye over it all.
Depending on the length of your previously purchased subscriptions, you may be nearing time to renew licenses for your SonicWall appliance. Renewal time can be a confusing and burdensome period, forcing you to make expensive decisions in a shrinking timeframe. As your deadline for renewal approaches, you may be wondering why you’re paying these recurring costs in the first place. After all, you’re not buying annual renewals for your printer or copy machine, so what’s the deal with firewall renewals?
Why Do Cybersecurity Licenses Need to be Renewed?
There’s a classic thought experiment called the “ship of Theseus.” For those unacquainted, here’s the paradox in a nutshell: as the wooden planks of Theseus’s (an ancient Greek hero) ship slowly rot with age, they are replaced–one at a time—with new planks. If this process continues for years until 100% of the original wooden planks have been scrapped and replaced with new lumber, is Theseus still sailing his original ship or a completely new vessel? This paradox of identity is relevant to how we think of license renewal: the firewall guarding your network today is not the same firewall that you deployed a year ago.
Ransomware, hackers, and malware cocktails are constantly evolving. When the threat actors in Russia call it a day, the hackers in Argentina are just clocking in. Luckily, network engineers and architects all around the globe are working even harder to deny their advances. Because of this never-ending cyber arms race, your firewall receives daily updates with up-to-the-minute strategies, signatures, and solutions for the dark web’s malware du jour. Chances are, the strategies that your firewall used to combat breaches last year are obsolete and have been replaced by more appropriate solutions.
Many people consider firewalls to be the primary powerhouse of network security; however, the physical appliance mounted in your rack (need a rack mount kit?) can be better thought of as a command center from which highly-specialized task forces—your licenses—can effectively deploy. While most firewalls do include some basic security capabilities, their true strength lies in empowering the security services executed through them.
What happens to your firewall if you decide to skip renewal? The same thing that would happen if Theseus decided to never replace the rotten lumber of his famous ship: his boat would go on sailing for a while, slowly gaining larger holes and breaches until it disappeared under the waves, leaving poor Theseus stranded and very salty.
How Do I Find the Correct License for Renewal?
Firewalls.com has worked hard to make this a painless process with our Renewals & Licensing Wizard. The license finder can locate your next renewal in under 30 seconds.
Firewalls.com strongly recommends SonicWall’s Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS), which offers the greatest degree of protection at a fair price point. The SonicWall AGSS bundle arms your network with a comprehensive array of cyberdefenses and, with Capture Advanced Threat Protection, denies even never-seen-before advanced threats.
Still not sure which license best fits your needs? Leave us your name & number. Our team will lend a hand!
This question is somewhat trickier to answer as it depends on the date you purchased your initial license. Most security providers and resellers offer licenses in 1, 2, or 3-year terms. Organizations that plan ahead can save a ton of money by purchasing licenses in longer 3-year terms. If you can afford
If you’re a Firewalls.com customer, you can relax. Our team will reach out when your license’s expiration date draws near with helpful reminders, tips, and special offers.
Didn’t purchase your appliance from Firewalls.com? We can still show you how to find your service expiration date. Just follow the steps in these screenshots:
Step 1: Navigate to the the “Manage” tab in the top bar.
Step 2: In the left-hand menu, select “Licenses.”
Step 3: Expiration dates for services can be found in the far right column.
Never Want to Worry About Renewal Again?
Psst… hey. We know a little secret that could mean you never have to keep track of expiration dates, service terms, or activation codes ever again. Security As A Service through our partner company, Techvisity, puts our team of expert engineers at the helm of your cyber security defenses, making them responsible for firmware updates, license renewals, and all of the gritty day-to-day particulars of network security. If you’re ready to quit Googling articles about subscriptions and patches, come explore how Security As A Service can improve your security posture while reducing your security budget.
A phrase has appeared on our blog many times before and it will be repeated here today: the era of set-it-and-forget-it security has passed. With thousands of newly-minted malware variants created each day, it is just no longer viable to maintain an up-to-the-minute list of malware signatures. Instead, firewall manufacturers are refocusing their efforts into behavior-based scans. Signature-based scans entail some baked-in limitations: signatures are based on a set of known patterns, leaving networks vulnerable to any never-seen-before (or zero day) threats. In addition, maintaining the highest chance of success translates into near-constant updates to ensure that the very latest signatures are accounted for. With 2017 witnessing the birth of over 58 million different variants of known malware, this quickly becomes a Sisyphean task. Your task list just got a lot shorter thanks to SonicWall’s newly-released Capture Client.
SonicWall has taken a huge step forward in this arena with the recent release of the Capture Client, powered by SentinelOne. SentinelOne is a cyber intelligence company specializing in safeguarding endpoints through innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Machine learning—a computer science discipline focused on harnessing advanced statistical analysis to imbue systems with the ability to learn through data—is the primary driver that allows behavioral-based scanning to detect zero day exploits and adapt to new threats. Capture Client and SentinelOne work together to provide one unified endpoint strategy featuring a wide array of security capabilities.
Continuous Behavioral Monitoring
Capture Client traces activities of all kinds occurring on your network. This includes file creation & modification, disk & memory scripts, process executions, and monitoring of internal communication within programs. Since Capture Client is solely monitoring files for behavior rather than handling and processing that data, there is absolutely no limit to the size of files that Capture Client can handle. No signatures need to be refreshed. Capture Client can effortlessly handle executable files, memory-only malware, document-based exploits, macros, drive-by downloads, scripts, credential scraping, and so much more. For your organization, this manifests in the form of relentless protection backed by the most current data available.
Multilayered Protection
The use of cloud intelligence enables Capture Client to learn how your network operates and react when those documented behaviors deviate from the norm. Static analysis, tag-teaming with machine learning, are able to make initial calls to determine whether a suspicious sample may pose a threat. During further dynamic behavioral analysis, Capture Client observes how a given sample may behave in a network environment without the risks of “detonating” the payload in your network.
No Scheduled Scans or Updates
When’s the last time your firewall got a firmware update? With Capture Client, it doesn’t matter. Cloud-based management with no handling of files means that your system is perpetually updated against the latest, the greatest, the leanest, and meanest of malware on the market.
Rollback Capabilities
Mistakes happen and despite our best laid plans, often human error can lead to unforeseen threats gaining a foothold on your network. But even if a malware payload is able to modify a few of your files, you can rely on the Capture Client’s rollback feature to restore you to pre-attack status. Capture Client’s rollback function reverts files to the last available version prior to malware modification. Rollback utilizes Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) available on all Windows machines. Because rollback relies on VSS, this feature is solely compatible with Microsoft systems.
Capture Client lives peacefully side-by-side with other SonicWall services such as the SonicWall Content Filtering Client and Global VPN Client. Policies for all of these products are conveniently managed via a single pane of glass through a cloud-based management console. When integrated with SonicWall firewall appliances, Capture Client blends perfectly into your security environment, offering a zero-touch experience for deployment on unprotected clients.
If your organization still relies on static policies, signature-based scanning, and firmware updates, you may be falling behind in the battle against advanced Internet threats. As the threat landscape changes, malware has shifted from a simple game of quantity to one of quality, versatility, and speed. Expect behavior-based security to become the norm in coming days. Where we currently stand, SonicWall’s Capture Client platform represents a huge step forward in meeting the demands of cybersecurity in 2018.
If you’re ready to really supercharge your network security, link up SonicWall’s Capture Client with a trusted local Managed Security Service Provider in your area for a partnership made in Heaven. Just as behavioral monitoring is becoming the standard for data scanning, Security As A Service is becoming standard operating procedure for businesses serious about security.
Happy Monday. We want you to start your week off with a burst of productivity. That’s why Firewalls.com put together a list of 5 common mistakes that organizations make when deploying their firewall. These tips are designed to be practical, easy-to-follow, and short! Whether your Internet has slowed to a crawl or the voice on the other end of your VoIP phone sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher, these quick tips will let you self-diagnose your setup and correct 5 common issues in a few clicks of the mouse. It’s time to get your Monday Morning Firewall Fix!
#1: Your Firewall Isn’t Scanning Encrypted Traffic
Over 60% of the web has migrated from HTTP to HTTPS, a security protocol which encrypts data between websites and servers. If your firewall is not utilizing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), then it is not scanning that traffic for viruses, malware, or ransomware potentially encrypted in the data packet. Whereas traditional stateful inspection scans only the data contained in the packet head, DPI scans every last byte for threats. With a majority of the Internet now encrypting everyday web traffic, if you’re not enabling DPI on your SonicWall, you’re completely neglecting the bulk of the danger.
Fix It:
Open your Firewall Admin Console
Go to: Manage > Decryption Service > DPI-SSL/TSL Client
Enable: SSL Client Inspection
#2: Your Firewall Isn’t Gathering Crucial Internet Usage Data
Most companies fail to implement a proper content filtering policy, leading to employees wasting time on non-productive websites or potentially exposing the organization to HR issues. Whether it be adult content, game sites, gambling, movie streaming, or otherwise, users on your network can slow down productivity for everyone while they slum it on unproductive websites. To further complicate the issue, your organization could be held liable for any illegal activity that occurs on your network! Take back control of your network and your traffic.
Fix It:
Open your Firewall Admin Console
Go to: Manage > Security Services > Content Filter
Enable: Content Filtering Service
#3: You Haven’t Implemented Employee Tracking
In addition to enabling your content filtering service, you should also implement tracking for your user groups. Without tracking, it’s difficult to track down and reprimand employees who violate your organization’s Internet usage policy. Tracking also helps you pin down users who are slowing down your connection with unusually high bandwidth usage.
Fix It
Open your Firewall Admin Console
Go to: Manage > Users > Settings
Set “User Authentication Method” to any option except for Local Users
#4: YouTube Is Making Your VoIP Sound Funky
Complaints about an echo, buzz, or garbled sound when talking on your VoIP phone system? It’s likely that your VoIP client is competing with other data-heavy applications that aren’t allowing it access to the bandwidth it needs. By implementing bandwidth usage, packet shaping, and application priorities, you can ensure that your bandwidth is being rationed to business-critical applications (like VoIP) first, granting them priority over less important applications. By setting up your VoIP as a high-priority client, you’ll have strong, crystal clear calls once more.
Fix It:
Open your Firewall Admin Console
Go to: Manage > Network > Interfaces > Configure WAN Interface
Click: “Advanced” options tab
Enable: Egress Bandwidth Management
Enable: Ingress Bandwidth Management
#5: You’re Running an Outdated Firewall
If you made it this far and have thought “huh, those last 4 images looked nothing like my admin console,” then you’re not running a current-generation firewall!
The introduction of ransomware-as-a-service and exploit kits has transformed the cyber threat landscape into a dynamic force that adapts and evolves by the day. The old “set it and forget it” approach to cyber security has been outpaced by cyber criminals who are always looking to innovate. Unfortunately, your outdated firewall just doesn’t have what it takes to withstand a modern cyber attack. It’s time to update your firmware, check your subscriptions, & consider an upgrade.
Fix It:
If you’re unable to set up these services, we strongly recommend that you have one of our SonicWall-certified engineers perform a health check on your network and configure the appliance. More than likely, you are NOT secure. Our engineers look for 20+ of the most common mistakes found on firewalls and we provide recommendations to help you address those issues. In order to get the most value and protection out of your firewall, our team implements a 99-step configuration checklist that we’ve developed over two decades as SonicWall partners. With the correct settings, we can get you back to a safe, productive network environment.
Call us today at 866.403.5305 and schedule an appointment to be confident you’re getting the very most out of your cyber security investment.
It’s time for a SonicWall upgrade, but you still have several months of subscription services running on your old legacy firewall. You don’t want to miss out on the crazy-good new features of Next Gen Firewalls, but you also don’t want to lose licenses that you’ve already paid for! Well, good news.
If you’re ready for a SonicWall upgrade, your subscription services are ready to follow you. Qualified trade-ins through SonicWall’s Secure Upgrade program allow you to migrate your current licenses from your legacy appliance to your new, upgraded hardware. No man left behind.
Why Upgrade to a Next Gen SonicWall?
Reassembly Free Deep Packet Inspection
Traditional stateful inspections scan only the content of packet headers, meaning that malicious code and ransomware hidden in the data can slip through your firewall and land on your network. Accomplishing truly air-tight security at your gateway requires the use of Deep Packet Inspection, which allows for the scanning of the entire packet instead of just the header. But this solution in turn introduces a new problem: it can take forever to sift through all that data!
SonicWall’s Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection or RFDPI, crushes this issue by more fluidly and dynamically inspecting snippets of data packs over multiple engines in real-time, without a heavy UTM anchor slowing down your network. SonicWall holds a patent on the process (Patent #US8813221, if you want to read more), so you’ll have to decide whether you want to upgrade to a next-gen NSA appliance or make the choice between safety and performance speed.
Save Money
Speed and security are not the only reasons to upgrade in 2018. The fact of the matter is, the firewall that you’ve been running for years just isn’t going to last forever; whether it succumbs to End of Life retirement or plain old entropy. As cyber criminals become more sophisticated, the capabilities of legacy firewalls will grow increasingly unable to protect your data. Even if you’re unimpressed with the newfangled promises of Next-Gen firewalls, chances are high that you’re going to end up buying one whether its today or three years down the road. SonicWall’s Secure Upgrade program is designed to incentivize upgrades with steep savings, so why not take advantage of them while they’re still available to you?
Flexible & Efficient Subscriptions
Life is just easier when you buy in bulk. You save a few dollars. You have the peace of mind in knowing there’s one less responsibility on your plate. You can worry less about what you have to do and care more about what you want to do. SonicWall’s Customer Advantage program, connected with their Secure Upgrade program, allows you to purchase more flexible and convenient service licenses for two-year or three-year subscriptions in addition to the normal one-year subscriptions. This benefits you by letting you to snag deep discounts and keep your budget clear for another 12 fiscal quarters instead of re-upping every year.
