SonicWall Announces Channel Partner Award Winners at EMEA PEAK16

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EMEA PEAK 16

Last week, SonicWall hosted more than 230 enthusiastic partners at our EMEA PEAK16 event and the information exchange was a valuable one for all of us. The city of Valetta in Malta, with its ancient stone walls and fortresses which have provided defense against attacks throughout history, proved an appropriate location for a security conference. The feedback we received from partners reaffirmed that as threats continue to evolve, customers need to constantly stay at least one step ahead of them. We heard the clear need to allow IT to move away from being an obstacle to the business to becoming an enabler, with technologies that protect from threats, but still provide easy access for all workers, especially those who are mobile or remote.

This week’s EMEA PEAK16 event reinforced for us that it’s more important than ever to provide a security portfolio that helps our partners reinforce their roles as trusted advisors. Partners took advantage of business and technical sessions designed to give them insight to the cyber threat landscape and how the Security portfolio drives real solutions to today’s threats.

EMEA PEAK16 wrapped with the recognition of those partners who exemplify commitment to the SonicWall portfolio and achieved substantial sales growth over the last year. The awards highlighted partner excellence Distribution, Channel Partners, New Partners and the coveted Project of the Year. Congratulations to the following winners:

  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best Distributor –Exertis
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best Performing Partner –NetThreat
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best New Comer –Ineo IT Solutions
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Special Jury Award –Data-Sec
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Project of the Year – Nalta Consultancy

EMEA PEAK16 was a great reminder of the commitment to mutual success we share with our Security partners, and the importance of our very important mission to protect our mutual customers from today’s ever evolving threats. Events like EMEA PEAK16 ‘with the opportunity for networking, along with educational sessions and new product information’ are key to our partner-dependent go-to-market strategy. I think the words of our partners sum it up best:

PEAK16 in Malta

“For me it was one of the best EMEA PEAK´s of the past years – great news, networking, direct contact in order to give feedback and get hot information directly from product-management, engineering, executives and had a lot of FUN! “Work hard – Party hard” and Business is made by people ““ that is one of the secrets to success!” said Nicolai Landzettel, CEO, Data-Sec UG

All of the sessions were interactive where we received strong, positive feedback on the progress of our portfolio and programs and validated the investments we are making to improve partner profitability, expand our sales and technical enablement offerings and build out our partner tools and infrastructure. Each of these elements are being optimized to better align with customer needs and partner engagement models. At EMEA PEAK16, we announced:

  • Enhancements to our Deal Registration program to make it more inclusive of SMB opportunities to reward partners who originate new customers and opportunities
  • Our partner Reward for Value framework which provides incremental discounts now available to partners with technical capabilities who deliver a proof of concept to their customers
  • New strategies for sustained partner sales and technical enablement including expanded curriculum and delivery options
  • A new sales accreditation program recently rolled out to the Security sales teams is now available to all Security Solutions Partners in July 2016. Designed to help continue driving the momentum behind the 30% increase in SonicWall certified Network Security partners over the last year, the program covers the full SonicWall portfolio and includes online learning, tools, training and accreditation.

We look forward to a continued strong year with our EMEA partners as we drive further advancements and enhancements in our portfolio and products and fulfill our mission to protect our mutual customers.

Zika Is Not the Only Virus You Can Get By Watching the Olympics

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It’s August 5, 2016 and you settle down at your computer to watch the Olympic opening ceremony. You have no fear of catching Zika, unlike the thousands of people in Rio. Feeling safe, you navigate to the official broadcast site of the games and click on Watch the Olympics live.

But wait, there’s fine print: Simply Sign-In Using Your TV Provider Account Login/Password And You’ll Have Access To FREE, LIVE Rio Olympics Coverage. Not cool. “Who pays for TV?” you ask yourself. “Haven’t they heard of streaming?” So you search on “Olympics live streaming free” and there, on the first page of results is:

The site doesn’t look official, but hey, the media player icon looks like YouTube, which you know is safe, so you click Play. The site asks you to download and install a video codec. The ceremony starts in five minutes and the screen screams “Stream in HD now!” You’re one step away from the Free Live Stream, so you click Accept”¦within microseconds, your computer is infected with a virus. Perhaps the video will start, perhaps it won’t, but in either case, the malware now on your computer will give you greater problems than missing the opening ceremonies.

How can you protect yourself from such a scenario? Here are some precautions you can take:

  1. Don’t go there. If a website is not an official site, chances are that it does not have the right to stream protected content. And if it does not have rights to stream, then the content is just bait for unsuspecting visitors like you.
  2. Don’t click that. So you ended up on the site anyhow. If it asks you to click a link or icon, tempts you with ads for free stuff, wants to do a download, or wants to install something, the only thing you should click is Close, as in close the browser.
  3. Update, update, update. Whether you are using a PC or a mobile device, update your operating system with the latest hotfixes. Update your browser to the latest level. Update your anti-virus software with the latest signatures. Configure your applications to do all these things automatically.
  4. Control and protect your network with a next-generation firewall. A next-generation firewall includes up-to-date security services that blocks websites of ill-repute, prevents malicious downloads, and kills the latest viruses. It even denies intrusions and attack attempts, snuffs out botnet traffic patterns, and recognizes which countries have the riskiest and most suspect Internet activities. You can’t get this level of security simply by following the first three precautions.

To learn more about the bad things that can infect you on the Internet and the ways that you can inoculate yourself, read our ebook – How ransomware can hold your business hostage.

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Become the “Department of Yes” for BYOD Using SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 8.5

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One of the most frightening IT nightmares is hearing employees say their mobile devices or laptops were lost or stolen. Cyber-attacks and mobile threats are at the highest they ever been and will continue soar. Customers large and small face cyber espionage. Today, at SonicWall Security PEAK16 – “Come for Knowledge. Leave with Power” – at the Hotel Excelsior in Malta; we are announcing the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 Series OS 8.5. This product’s new features and enhancements offer comprehensive security; it allows IT administrators to quickly and easily deliver secure mobile access and roles based privileges. Remote workers using managed or unmanaged devices will have secure, fast and easy access. I am honored to share this news at our highly anticipated, annual conference for European security value-added resellers (VARs). For the next two days, we are meeting for insightful one-on-one dialogue with top VARs business and technical executives.

The VARS are at the core of our ecosystem. They deliver the expertise to chief security officers (CISOs) with speed and agility, without compromising company security. This is at the heart of our worldwide campaign, the “Department of Yes.” When you partner with SonicWall Security, you have the power and support of the world’s leading security provider for your customers — while opening up limitless opportunities for your business.

“We at CETSAT have been working with the SonicWall family of products for over 15 years. SonicWall has always been able to maintain a commanding relevance to business and today is no different. With IT security increasingly on the mind of every business owner, director and staff responsible for technology, the SonicWall Security portfolio of products leads the way in helping companies of all sizes to reduce risk from cyber threats and prevent disruption to business. CETSAT look forward to a continuing and beneficial relationship with this great world brand.”

— Durgan Cooper, president of CETSAT

Peak16 attendees and press will be introduced to SonicWall Secure Mobile Access OS 8.5’s capacity to allow small to medium sized businesses to ensure workers can be securely productive anywhere and on any device. Becoming part of the “Department of Yes” gives IT administrators the flexibility to enable BYOD while protecting business assets and the organization from today’s shape-shifting threats. The SMA 100 Series is compatible with devices across Windows, iOS, Mac OS X, Android, Linux, Kindle Firewall and Chrome. We provide mobile users secure access to network resources including shared folders, client-server applications, intranet sites, email and remote and virtual desktop services. Our proven and award-winning solutions enable IT to configure polices for context-aware authentication, granting access only to trust devices and authorized users. Some of the innovative enhancements of this release include:

  • Policy wizards – Easy wizards to deploy policies for OWA, ActiveSync, Outlook Anywhere and Auto-discover.
  • HTML5 Enhancements – Delivers end users with a rich access experience within their choice of web browser, eliminating their need to download, install and maintain additional software on their systems.
  • Virtual Host Multicore Support – Increases resource capacity of host resources that can be accessed by SMA giving greater reliability and performance at higher concurrencies for connected users.

Also, noteworthy recent enhancements to SonicWall SMA 100 series include:

  • Web Application Firewall (WAF) Enhancements ‒ Securing internal web applications from remote users, SonicWall’s award-winning WAF engine has been enhanced to detect against additional exploits and threats. This ensures that the confidentiality of data and internal web services remain uncompromised if a malicious or rogue authenticated user should gain access.
  • Geo IP Detection and Botnet Protection ‒ Grants customers with a mechanism to allow or restrict user access from various geographical locations.
  • End Point Control (EPC) Enhancements ‒ Enhancements to the SMA EPC engine provide greater assurance that the endpoint accessing the network is trusted and not malicious.

SonicWall Security EMEA PEAK16 also offers a wealth of state-of-the-art keynotes by our executives (including yours truly), as well as technical and business breakouts that open up the world of the Department of Yes. These jam-packed sessions address our end-to-end security, including our identity-aware firewalls and more:

We are delighted that our security channel partners are joining us for SonicWall Security PEAK16 in Malta. I encourage you to engage live with us by following the ongoing discussion on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook at @SonicWall with the conference hashtags #EMEAPEAK16, and post your comments below.

SonicWALL Channel Partners Come for Knowledge and Leave with Power at EMEA PEAK16 in Malta

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Today, we are so excitedEamon Moore managing director of EMIT
to be here at the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Valetta, Malta with more than 230 of our security-focused partners, for the annual SonicWall Security EMEA PEAK16 conference. This is SonicWall Security’s opportunity to affirm our commitment to our channel partners and to work together to protect our customers.

The conference comes at a time when the cyber threat landscape is hotter than ever. We can’t deny the headlines reporting how enterprises of all sizes are under attack. And it’s clear that most of these enterprises are ill-prepared to keep pace with the threats or deal with the inevitable breach. This is where SonicWall Security’s Channel comes in. These talented organizations are where enterprises must turn to seek advice and action on how to protect their brands, their assets and IP, and their customers. Together with our Partners, SonicWall Security is on a mission to protect our customers!

excelsior_1

If you are a CISO how do know if you can defend against the countless known and unknown threats? Is your customer data safe? What to do about ransomware? We recently launched a worldwide campaign focused on helping these CISOs understand how they can address these security threats that prevent them from supporting the business of their enterprise and swiftly move from being an obstacle to an enabler. We help them become the Department of Yes. SonicWall Security EMEA Peak16 details for our partners how to architect and deliver the security solutions that turn “no” in to “yes.” How to break down the siloes that exist between all the traditional elements in a security blueprint. I am excited to spend the next few days showing our partners how by leveraging our SonicWall network security and SonicWall One Identity portfolios; we can inspect every packet and govern every identity in a seamless, integrated way that delivers superior security.

We recently saw a great guest blog by Eamon Moore managing director of EMIT our premier partner in Ireland, highlighting what he is looking for this year to expand his knowledge and networking with peers across Europe. With the packed agenda and expert speakers, we hope to inspire our Partners to drive conversations with their customers that go well beyond bits and bytes, to approach a security strategy in a different, connected way. In doing so, our Partners will be able to add more value as the trusted advisor and enable their customers to become the Department of Yes.

We are looking forward to meeting up with Jason Hill, Sales Director for Exertis VAD Solutions, our premier partner.

“Our relationship with Sonicwall spans nearly two decades, in 2017 we will celebrate our 20th anniversary, and I know the commitment from both parties makes our relationship rock solid. SonicWall Security has opened up new opportunities for us and more importantly our channel, and we are looking forward to working with our partners to provide comprehensive security to their end user base.

Peak 2016 in Malta will be packed with the latest solution and product updates. We never miss attending these events as they are the perfect opportunity to catch up with the staff from SonicWall, meet our channel partners and learn together.” Jason Hill, Sales Director, Exertis VAD Solutions, United Kingdom.

EMEA Peak16 also provides a great forum for SonicWall Security to outline all of the new programs, tools, resources, enablement and incentives we are investing in to help our Partners build an even more significant and profitable practice with SonicWall Security.

Key among these are our new Reward for Value structure, where partners earn the maximum reward for the value they add to selling and implementing SonicWall Security solutions. We’ll detail how identifying new opportunities, building technical expertise and executing a successful proof of concept all translate into building a more profitable practice. We are also announcing new partner enablement; a specific accreditation focused on how to help their customers become a “Department of YES.”

A significant portion of the agenda is also dedicated to deep dives into our product portfolio, both the evolution and latest features of long-standing products like our SonicWall next-gen firewalls, SonicWall Secure Mobile Access and  SonicWall Email Security that many of our Partners have made mainstays of their security solutions for many years, as well as new and exciting security services such as SonicWall Capture ATP. Partners tell us that our rock solid portfolio and recent innovations in these areas inspire them, and we are confident we can Wow them with this at EMEA Peak16.

Finally, SonicWall Security EMEA Peak16 is a tremendous opportunity for feedback from our partners on what we can do to enhance and support their business. I’m excited to continue this two-way communication where our partners advise us on our products and programs, our sales investment and sales motions, helping improve our support and the overall customer life cycle experience we jointly deliver. As the head of sales, I’m hoping to learn how we can team most effectively with our Partners to compete and win incremental business. We have built a deliberate and fully dependent go-to-market model on our partners, and it’s important to me that we are the best business partner we can be to them and that we strive to be easy to do business with.

And one last thing, as my 25 years of working with partners has taught me, an event like SonicWall Security EMEA Peak16 is also an opportunity for us all to get to know each other better, to connect on a personal level and have some FUN! We are united in our mission to protect our customer and the more personal our bond, the more effective we will be in our pursuit of this very important mission.

For those who cannot be with us, I encourage you to follow the ongoing discussion on Twitter with #EMEAPEAK16, #PartnerDirect, @SonicWall @SonicWallChannelEMEA and post your comments below.

Inspect Everything, Protect Everything: Next Generation Firewalls for Network Segmentation Inspection

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Most of us would reach into a cookie jar full of delicious, just-out-of-the-oven, chocolate chip cookies without a care in the world, or any doubt that we should simply enjoy the euphoric chocolaty goodness.

But what about germs? Did everyone wash their hands before reaching into the jar? What soap did they use? How do you know if your delicious cookie hasn’t been infected? It’s not like you can force someone to stand guard with a bottle of hand sanitizer to ensure that everyone is disinfected before they reach their hand into the jar. Or can you?

Your network data is a lot like that jar of cookies. You want to ensure it is available for those trusted to be able to enjoy and use, and you want to keep it safe from infection. You also want to be able to see who else is reaching into your cookie jar, and make sure they aren’t eating all the cookies. You want to make sure you are protected from cookie thieves and other crumb snatchers.

The practice of architecting a network with different zones and segments based on usage, function, or location (for instance, configuring different network zones or VLANs for different uses such as isolating DMZ from LAN traffic) is nothing new. It has been a long standing cornerstone in any enterprise network. Over the years this segmentation theme has grown drastically in some enterprises, such that different hallways or floors of buildings are isolated on specific VLANs, or printers and servers are on different VLANs than end-user workstations. In some cases, there could be further segmenting of various WIFI networks, VoIP networks, or public accessible kiosks. In the Internet of Things model, everything needs to be connected, but, for controlling the connectivity, network segmentation is still a vastly favored and effective method.

However, there is a flaw to this mindset that many network admins and architects have overlooked, and that is the evolving security threat landscape. Most networks using forms of VLAN segmentation have deployed these VLANs on high-performance-core network switches to support the vast demand of connectivity and throughput performance. As such, the most common example one might see of this configuration is several VLANs combined with Layer 3 IP Interfaces built on the core switch. Once this is configured, it enables users to route directly over the switch from user networks to the server networks. While this is traditionally a very effective and standard approach to network communications, it has become an effective way for malware to communicate as well. In this approach, as there is typically no access control between the end-users and server segments, exploits, trojans, and malware can pass freely from zone to zone.

Consider the data as the cookies, and the server zone in which they sit as the cookie jar. You need to make sure every user that reaches their hand into that jar has used hand sanitizer to make sure they are not passing off any infections. You need to make sure the users reaching into that jar are who they say they are, and that they aren’t stealing your favorite cookie. You cannot rely on simple network access control or stateful packet inspection via access list on a core switch to protect your cookies. The threat landscape has evolved, and stateful rules that would permit file share access would also permit communications for the latest ransomware exploits. Don’t let the bad guys hold your cookies hostage.

By deploying the SonicWall Next-Gen Firewall with advanced Gateway Antivirus, Access Control, Application Inspection, Intrusion Prevention, and Advanced Persistent Threat Protection, in combination with a network architecture crafted for segmenting different network zones, you can successfully ensure that everyone’s hands have been disinfected. Keep your cookie jar clean from the latest botnets, exploits, intrusions, and malware. Read more on this topic with our “Executive Brief: Why you need network security segmentation to stop advance threats.”

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Looking Ahead to Black Friday: Fortify Your Network Security

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One of my first customers in IT was a large retailer, with more than a thousand stores. This was at a time when e-commerce was just beginning, at least for large, traditional retailers. Giving their customers the ability to purchase on the web was still a year or two away.

This retailer made about 90 percent of its annual revenue between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. That was “Season”, and the entire year’s IT schedule was built around getting ready for Season. Any and all hardware upgrades, OS changes, and software updates were to be completed and locked in by mid October. Change control during Season was very simple: No changes unless something broken absolutely had to be fixed, you were able to make a 100% solid case for the change, and not doing the change would impact revenue. Otherwise, hold off until January.

Retail’s a lot more complex these days, and brick-and-mortar is only one of the revenue-generating retail channels. Still, Season remains Season. And it all begins with Black Friday. Estimates of 2015’s revenue for the first two days of Season, including Black Friday, top $4 billion in the U.S., with about a third of that coming from online sales. More than 150 million shoppers purchased online during the 2015 Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Clearly, this is not a time to have security issues with your infrastructure, and especially so with your payment systems, whether online or POS systems in your stores.

The relevant compliance standard is PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). Version 3.1 takes effect on June 30, and includes a number of changes from the previous version (3.0). These include, with some exceptions, removal of SSL and early versions (1.0 and 1.1) of TLS, along with some additional clarifications of existing requirements, a number of which are common sense clarifications (For example, don’t send unencrypted account numbers in a text message. You think?).

Complying with PCI DSS is a good way to reduce your business’s risk of cyber attack, but it’s really only a waypoint toward better security, not an end in and of itself. That’s a point SonicWall Security’s Tim Brown, our CTO and a SonicWall Fellow, makes in an on-demand webcast highlighting the changes to PCI DSS in version 3.1, so that you can be best prepared for Black Friday. We offer SonicWall network security solutions to help you stay PCI compliant, and improve security well beyond the PCI basics. And staying in line with 3.1 will put you in better shape to have a more secure, successful Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday Season. It will also prepare you for PCI DSS 3.2, which includes additional clarifications and new requirements, particularly around multifactor authentication for anyone having access to cardholder data. While 3.2 succeeds 3.1 as a standard for assessments as of this October, its new requirements will not be mandated until February 2018 until then, they’ll just be considered best practices.

Learn more about the changes in PCI DSS 3.1, and how they can help your business prepare for Black Friday. View Focusing on security to meet compliance: responding to changes in PCI DSS 3.1.

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