A10 Networks and Webroot Partner to Extend Web Classification to A10 Thunder ADCs

A10 customers can satisfy security and regulatory requirements by decrypting SSL traffic while excluding traffic to regulated data and sensitive sites like banking and healthcare

a technology leader in application networking, and Webroot, the market leader in cloud-based, real-time Internet threat detection, announced that A10 will integrate the Webroot BrightCloud® Web Classification Service into the A10 Thunder Application Delivery Controller (ADC) product line, improving performance, efficacy and compliance of SSL traffic decryption.

Using the Webroot BrightCloud Web Classification Service with A10’s SSL Intercept feature, customers can analyze and secure SSL traffic while bypassing communications to sensitive sites such as banking and healthcare applications. The combined solution enables organizations to protect end user devices and applications, while meeting regulatory requirements that forbid the decryption or logging of confidential data. By adding Web Classification to Thunder ADC, customers using A10’s innovative SSL Intercept feature can granularly control which types of SSL or TLS traffic to decrypt and which types to forward without inspection.

Thunder ADC’s SSL Intercept feature eliminates the blind spot imposed by SSL encryption, offloading CPU-intensive SSL decryption functions that enable security devices to inspect all encrypted traffic. Thunder ADC decrypts SSL-encrypted traffic and forwards it to third-party security devices like firewalls, threat prevention platforms, or monitoring and analytics products for deep packet inspection (DPI).

While dedicated security devices can inspect and analyze network traffic, they are rarely designed to decrypt SSL traffic at high speeds. In fact, some security products cannot decrypt SSL traffic at all. SSL Intercept offloads CPU-intensive encryption and decryption tasks from dedicated security devices, boosting application performance.

“Our customers use a wide array of security products to analyze and protect their users and their data,” said Mr Jason Matlof, Vice President of Marketing at A10 Networks. “Unfortunately, many of these security products cannot inspect SSL traffic, exposing organizations to attack and data exfiltration. By partnering with Webroot, we can provide visibility into SSL traffic without unnecessarily decrypting communications to highly sensitive websites and federally regulated data.”

“We are excited to partner with A10 Networks and integrate our market-leading web classification capabilities with A10 Networks’ innovative SSL inspection solution,” said Mr Scott Merkle, Vice President of Enterprise and OEM Sales at Webroot. “Together, we can empower organizations to identify threats lurking in SSL traffic while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.”

The Webroot BrightCloud Web Classification Service enables network and security vendors to help enterprise customers protect users against web threats and meet regulatory compliance requirements. The advanced, self-learning Webroot® Intelligence Network continuously scans the internet, leaving no place for threats to hide. Using a highly sophisticated combination of global threat sensors, machine learning algorithms and human classification, Webroot maintains and expands its knowledge of website classifications and integrates this information into the BrightCloud Web Classification Service.

Webroot and A10 Networks integration benefits:

Comprehensive website coverage: Webroot scores and classifies over 460 million domains in more than 45 languages to correctly identify and categorize websites.
Highly accurate web categorization: Advanced machine learning classifies websites at a rate of over 2,500 per second with an extremely low error rate.
Automated classification updates: Thunder ADC can automatically download new URL updates and-with the optional cloud service-perform cloud-based lookups for unknown URLs.
Industry-first URL classification in an ADC: A10 has delivered the first SSL Intercept feature with web classification in an enterprise-grade application delivery controller. A10 customers can quickly enable and configure the Web Classification Service in their Thunder ADC appliances.

Availability

The Web Classification Service for Thunder ADC is available as an annual subscription for Thunder and AX ADC product lines in ACOS (Advanced Core Operating System) 4.0, available in Q4. A10 Networks will be available to discuss the Webroot integration at Black Hat on August 5-7, 2014 in Las Vegas, Booth #659.