Dell combines WiFi and firewall to fend off SMB cyber attacks

Dell has launched a new set of SonicWall security products that merge Wi-Fi with firewalls to defend against cyber attacks.

Named the TZ Wireless Firewall Series, the range is comprised of the TZ300, TZ400 and TZ500, designed to be deployed either in SMBs with around 10-60 employees, or in satellite offices or retail stores of larger enterprises that have a similar number of staff.

Florian Malecki, head of Dell SonicWall's EMEA marketing team, told IT Pro: "What we have seen is that many organisations are more and more offering wireless access either to guests or for their employees. There are many ways of doing this, such as deploying a fully-fledged, typical wireless technology that we have with Dell Networking, for example.

"But if you are an SMB that might not be the way you would do it, because they only have 10 or 20 users and maybe use a small office of a few square metres, and might not have three or four people in the IT department to manage end-user computing, WiFi, security, the LAN and so on.

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"[The products have] the ability to offer an integrated wireless service into the firewall. That is what these TZ products offer - gateway antivirus, antispyware, URL content filtering and application firewall."

As well as offering size-appropriate firewall and WiFi technology, Dell also claimed that this "high performance next generation firewall" is capable of detecting modern cyber attack methods by carrying out analysis such as deep packet inspection on encrypted traffic, without causing lag.

"As an example, the TZ400 - our midrange product - the customer will be able to get, with all of the different security services enabled, 300MB of throughput. This is normally more than enough, as SMBs' internet connections are normally in the range of 50MB to 100MB," Malecki said.

The Dell SonicWall TZ300, TZ400 and TZ500 are all available immediately both from Dell and from channel resellers.

Jane McCallion is Managing Editor of ITPro and ChannelPro, specializing in data centers, enterprise IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Before becoming Managing Editor, she held the role of Deputy Editor and, prior to that, Features Editor, managing a pool of freelance and internal writers, while continuing to specialize in enterprise IT infrastructure, and business strategy.

Prior to joining ITPro, Jane was a freelance business journalist writing as both Jane McCallion and Jane Bordenave for titles such as European CEO, World Finance, and Business Excellence Magazine.