Cynetix - Global IT

A firewall beyond compare. Do you need the ultimate in security from network attacks? Cynetix is the answer with our fully managed and supported Smoothwall firewalls.

Cynetix & Smoothwall At Cynetix we have many years of experience building, installing and managing Smoothwall solutions. As Cynetix is one of only a handful of resellers in the UK with Silver status you can be guaranteed that we have the knowledge and expertise to advise and guide you on the best solution possible for your firewall, internet and network security. Below you will find some information on Corporate Server 4 and its add-on modules, if you don't see something to suit you please contact us to discuss your requirements.

Corporate 4 Corporate Firewall is a modular firewall system designed to fulfil the network security needs of small to medium size organisations and corporate branch offices, typically supporting a maximum of 250 user computers. The modular design allows the security system to grow with business needs, providing the ability to retrospectively add facilities like Secure Remote Access for field staff, VPN connectivity to branch offices, Web Content Filtering and Bandwidth Management. The stateful packet inspection firewall includes an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect network probes and attacks upon the firewall and the computers that it protects. Comprehensive logging and reporting facilities record such IDS incidents, hardware performance, network utilisation and detailed information about the traffic flowing through the firewall. Corporate Firewall is the security solution that grows and evolves with business needs, not one that has to be replaced every few years when it becomes obsolete.

SmoothGuardian SmoothGuardian is the web content filtering module for the Corporate Firewall firewall. Its primary function is to ensure that users' web browsing is work related, with categorised blocking of objectionable content such as pornography, violence, drugs and racial hatred. Unlike most filtering products which rely on web site 'blacklists', Guardian's Dynamic Content Analysis technology examines the content of all received web pages, blocking on the basis of what pages actually contain, not where they come from. Access to news, sport and other "time wasting" sites can be restricted on a time-of-day basis if desired. Guardian can also prevent the download of copyright music and executable files that may contain viruses.

SmoothTunnel VPN Gateway module, for site-to-site network connections and mobile users SmoothTunnel is a standards based, highly secure, protocol independent VPN Gateway. SmoothTunnel supports site-to-site (or network to network) IPSec VPN connections, using AES or 3DES encryption algorithms, with x509 certificate or pre-shared key authentication. Clientless Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol (L2TP) VPN is recommended for mobile users running Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP, being not only simple to use but also highly secure due to the use of 3DES encryption and x509 certificate authentication. Alternatively mobile users can utilise an IPSec client on their Windows or Mac computer for IPSec VPN connectivity to SmoothTunnel.

SmoothRule Internet Access Control (Outbound/Egress Rules) module, to block instant messaging, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing and games SmoothRule allows an organisation to control which Internet services users on its local network can access. In addition to blocking time-wasting activities like games and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing; SmoothRule can also restrict access to external SMTP mail servers. This can prevent users sending private email to non-company mail servers and limit the spread of viruses which include an SMTP engine.

SmoothTraffic Bandwidth Management (Quality of Service) module Bandwidth Management allows organisations to prioritise their own Internet traffic rather than their ISP's upstream networking equipment making the decisions. Many ISPs actually prioritise file downloads on a DSL connection rather than what most users would consider to be important, the interactive traffic such as web browsing and Voice over IP. With an ADSL connection it is particularly important to manage the slow upstream channel, as should this become overloaded a condition known as "ACK Starvation" will occur. The Internet servers sending data are kept waiting for the acknowledgement packets from the receiving computers on the organisation's local network due to the congestion on the upstream ADSL channel. This happens despite the fact that the faster downstream channel is not fully used - so the Internet connection is used very inefficiently. Increasing the speed of the downstream channel whilst leaving the slow upstream channel unchanged will produce no performance improvement!

SmoothHost Provides support for multiple web, email and other Internet servers SmoothHost provides support for multiple web, email and other Internet servers in the Corporate Firewall DeMilitarized Zone (DMZ). SmoothHost allows unlimited public IP addresses to be configured on the firewall's external network interface and introduces Static Network Address Translation (SNAT) capability.

SmoothMonitor Remote firewall monitoring, reporting and incident alerting module SmoothMonitor constantly monitors a Corporate Firewall system, producing regular system performance reports and sending alert warnings for events that may require the attention of the network administrators. Alerts can be sent either by email or via SMS text messages to mobile phones.