Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Forum Systems Delivers Industry's First Unified Content Firewall

Forum Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Crosscheck Networks, Inc., today announced the next generation of its flagship XML Gateway fueling faster, more powerful and seamless Web experiences for users.

Forum Sentry WAF unites -- natively, for the first time in one appliance -- the threat protection, scalability and Federated Identity capabilities of an XML Gateway with the security of a Web Application Firewall (WAF). By removing the identity and security burden from Web sites and composite applications, this unified Content Firewall securely authenticates and authorizes users invoking services, regardless of where the services reside. Unlike legacy WAFs, Forum Sentry WAF enforces decisions across complex identity tokens and repositories and throughout the entire transaction, rapidly delivering rich online content to users without requiring multiple sign-ins.

Global enterprises continue to develop intelligent, sophisticated Web applications in response to end-users' demands for real-time information. Content-rich, widget-driven portals presenting comprehensive user information shared between and across multiple business lines has given rise to both HTML and XML data patterns. This dynamic is causing significant challenges for organizations as current WAFs are inherently unable to support, secure and scale this ever-increasing rise in hybrid traffic.

"With the convergence of browser- and application-based technologies accessing back-end systems that house corporate and user data, the requirement for protecting that sensitive information across and between corporate boundaries is paramount," said Mamoon Yunus, CEO of Crosscheck Networks. "Though current WAF offerings are a core component of IT infrastructures -- as PCI DSS requirements mandate the use of a WAF to protect cardholder data -- they cannot secure and scale both HTML and XML traffic and meet the deep content inspection demands of today's enterprises."

Yunus continued: "Compounding matters, the 'light' identity management capabilities available in the existing generation of WAFs make them woefully ill-equipped to handle Federated Identity decisions. In response to increasing customer demand fueled by such shortcomings, we are unveiling Forum Sentry WAF to power more secure, rapid and enhanced user-portal experiences."

  • 1