CREDANT Technologies launches Personal Firewall to handheld devices

The company adds Personal Firewall to its Mobile Guardian Security and Management Software Platform, providing directory-integrated, centrally-managed firewall, access control, encryption and application control in one solution for Windows Mobile Pocket PC Smartphones and Palm PDAs.

The company says a firewall is an effective defense between an adversary and his target – the mobile device – when used to access the Internet from corporate or public access points (such as hotel and airport hot spots) or through a wireless carrier. Personal firewalls guard against a hacker taking control of the device, accessing business information contained on the device or planting malicious code that can wipe out personal settings, overwrite files and hijack applications for malicious exploitation when the device connects to the corporate network. With CMG Personal Firewall, mobile devices are protected when used to access the Internet over WiFi wireless LANs, GPRS and CDMA networks and protects peer-to-peer communications between Bluetooth or Infrared (IR)-enabled devices.

The CMG Personal Firewall is ideal for:

Organizations that have a large population of mobile workers who are working outside a corporate network and access the Internet

Users of “always on” mobile devices that download applications and data from the Internet and are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, IP spoofing and hijacking of communication links

Organizations who are sanctioning the corporate use of next-generation mobile devices that include built-in support for IR, Bluetooth, WiFi wireless LANs, GPRS and CDMA communications
Complementing the robust features of the CREDANT Mobile Guardian security and management platform, the CMG Personal Firewall delivers:

Centrally-configured, always-on personal firewall to ensure a mobile worker’s mobile and wireless device is always protected against attacks

A policy-driven layered defense against multiple threats that shields an enterprise from attacks, data theft and compromised mobile devices

The industry’s first directory-integrated, centralized security administration and on-device enforcement of access control, encryption, application control and firewall policies when managed and enforced by CMG Enterprise Edition Server

Multiple policy creation and management options to reduce administrative burden and operational complexity

Granular security rules and stateful packet filtering that make it easy to defend against multiple threats by controlling inbound traffic and restricting access to the mobile device based on the type of connection established

Real-time integrity checking that tracks changes to the system and, if the system is compromised, immediately generates a logged alert, and initiates a pre-defined action such as quarantining the device

A solution that is optimized to run on compact, low-power mobile devices

End-to-end security for mobile workers that access both the Internet and corporate network remotely when used with the CMG MovianVPN client

The Personal Firewall will be available during the 2nd half of 2004 thru CREDANT direct sales and strategic resellers including Airloom, Envoy Data Systems, EDS, Hewlett-Packard and IBM Global Services.