Security Blog

NETGEAR has always had an SMB focus. And we've found Internet security solutions offered to the SMB generally lacking in coverage, performance, and feature set. The truth is security technologies such as anti-virus or anti-spyware scanning are very processor intensive. Think back at how your desktop or laptop slowed down the last time you were doing a full system virus scan. Now multiply that by 50 or 100 and you'll begin to get an idea of the kind of horsepower it takes to scan the Web and email traffic flowing in and out of your entire network.  Up until now, you needed high end hardware to provide the computing muscle necessary to effectively protect a small to medium sized network. And with high end hardware comes a hefty price tag that out prices most SMBs. If that's the case, how come there are so many "SMB" security solutions?

Well, if you take out a few hundred thousand virus signatures (or a million!) here, limit the number of file types you scan there, and while we're at it, use open source and give it a name with a nice ring, pretty soon that high-end expensive CPU you needed suddenly becomes a $10 chip. You see vendors advertising "We use a dedicated hardware accelerator chip, SUPER HIGH THROUGHPUT!!!". What they don't tell you is that the chip can only fit 3000 malware signatures. Yes, 3000. The worst part about this is the poor customer who thinks they are protected. After all, they have all the checkbox features: Anti-malware scanning, check. Anti-spam, check. URL filtering, check. A week later they ask themselves why they are still having infected desktops, why they are still receiving spam, and why the latest celebrity nude photo site is still accessible on the company network.  Which begs the question "Is it worse to have no security, or is it worse to have a false sense of security?"

This is why the ProSecure brand was born. We believe that SMBs need and deserve better and we are going to give it to them. No, NETGEAR is historically not a security company. That is why we went out and acquired our own security team (yours truly included) and revolutionary scanning technology. That is why we have partnered with the best in the industry for malware, spam, and web filtering. We have a vision of providing the SMB with the best protection available - anywhere, with no strings attached. We've worked vigorously over the past year to bring you the STM.  The STM contains over 1.6 million malware signatures. Now compare that to 3000, or even 30,000. It utilizes a distributed spam analysis technology that polls from over 50 million sources to stop new types of spam within minutes. All of this, built on top of our "secret sauce", the NETGEAR Stream Scanning platform. Best of all, you'll be able to buy one without mortgaging half your business. As you may have noticed, ProSecure is not just marketing fluff.