WatchGuard Technologies has unveiled its latest release of the operating system that forms the backbone of the award-winning family of WatchGuard XTM security solutions – WatchGuard Fireware XTM 11.6. In particular, this new release includes substantive performance and management enhancements that help administrators define, review and enforce network policies.

Today, having strong security is not enough. Industry and regulatory compliance require next-generation firewalls to also include rich reporting and policy management capabilities stated by Mr. Mohit Puri, Country Manager, India & SAARC - WatchGuard Technologies. With this new release of Fireware XTM, WatchGuard continues to push the envelope by giving administrators powerful tools to see what is going on in their network, as well as rich policy controls that give them new abilities to quickly and easily create and enforce security policies.

Fireware XTM 11.6, which is available for all WatchGuard XTM models, delivers the following key enhancements:

• Simple definition of user rules in Citrix and Terminal Services. Fireware XTM 11.6 has been updated to provide single sign-on so that users coming through Citrix XenApp or Microsoft Terminal Services environments don’t require any additional authentication steps.
• Authentication improvements. WatchGuard user authentication page has also been updated to support smart phones (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile), enabling mobile users to be identified for use in policy management and reporting.
• Updated in the cloud services. Reputation Enabled Defense, the powerful cloud-based URL reputation service that protects web users from malicious web pages, has been updated to include new phishing and malware information feeds from PhishTank and MalwareDomainList.
• Scalability and performance. Firewall throughput has been increased on all XTM 5 and 8 Series models, by as much as 50 percent in some cases.
• Compliance reporting in Report Manager. Report Manager has been updated to include a dashboard and a single set of reports for both PCI and HIPAA. It now provides easy one-click access to information needed for compliance requirements.
• Increased VLANs. The number of VLANs on XTM 3, 5, and 8 Series platforms has been increased.
• VPN diagnosis improvements. Fireware XTM 11.6 provides new diagnostic capabilities that help users to troubleshoot VPN interoperability and connectivity issues.
• Preview of policy enhancements. Fireware XTM 11.6 introduces new tools to help simplify the understanding and maintenance of policies as defined on the firewall.

Pricing and Availability

WatchGuard Fireware XTM 11.6 is available now for free for customers with current LiveSecurity service.