Industry-validated security effectiveness and performance for mid-sized networks

The SonicWall Network Security Appliance (NSA) series provides mid-sized networks, branch offices and distributed enterprises with advanced threat prevention in a high-performance security platform. Combining nextgeneration firewall technology with our patented* Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) engine on a multi-core architecture, the NSA series offers the security, performance and control organizations require.

Superior threat prevention and performance

NSA series next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) integrate advanced security technologies to deliver superior threat prevention. Our patented singlepass RFDPI threat prevention engine examines every byte of every packet, inspecting both inbound and outbound traffic simultaneously. The NSA series leverages on-box capabilities including intrusion prevention, anti-malware and web/URL filtering in addition to cloudbased SonicWall Capture multi-engine sandboxing service to block zero-day threats at the gateway. Unlike other security products that cannot inspect large files for hidden threats, NSA firewalls scan files of any size across all ports and protocols. The security architecture in SonicWall NGFWs has been validated as one of the industry's best for security effectiveness by NSS Labs for five consecutive years.

Further, SonicWall NGFWs provide complete protection by performing full decryption and inspection of TLS/SSL and SSH encrypted connections as well as non-proxyable applications regardless of transport or protocol. The firewall looks deep inside every packet (the header and data) searching for protocol non-compliance, threats, zero-days, intrusions, and even defined criteria to detect and prevent hidden attacks that leverage cryptography, block encrypted malware downloads, cease the spread of infections, and thwart command and control (C&C) communications and data exfiltration. Inclusion and exclusion rules allow total control to customize which traffic is subjected to decryption and inspection based on specific organizational compliance and/or legal requirements.

When organizations activate deep packet inspection functions such as intrusion prevention, anti-virus, antispyware, TLS/SSL decryption/inspection and others on their firewalls, network performance often slows down, sometimes dramatically. NSA series firewalls, however, feature a multi-core hardware architecture that utilizes specialized security microprocessors. Combined with our RFDPI engine, this unique design eliminates the performance degradation networks experience with other firewalls.

In today's security environment, it's not enough to rely on solely on outside parties for threat information. That's why SonicWall formed its own in-house Capture Labs threat research team more than 15 years ago. This dedicated team gathers, analyzes and vets data from over one million sensors in its Capture Threat Network. SonicWall also participates in industry collaboration efforts and engages with threat research communities to gather and share samples of attacks and vulnerabilities. This shared threat intelligence is used to develop real-time countermeasures that are automatically deployed to our customers' firewalls.

At the core of the NSA series is SonicOS, SonicWall's feature-rich operating system. SonicOS provides organizations with the network control and flexibility they require through application intelligence and control, real-time visualization, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) featuring sophisticated antievasion technology, high-speed virtual private networking (VPN) and other robust security features.