Features
Benefit
Reliable and Expandable Security Appliance
Purpose-Built Security Appliance
¡E Uses a proprietary, hardened operating system that eliminates the security
risks associated with general purpose operating systems
¡E Combines Cisco product quality with no moving parts
to provide a highly reliable security platform
Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet Expansion Options
¡E Supports easy installation of additional network interfaces via three
PCI expansion slots
¡E Supports expansion cards including single-port Fast
Ethernet, four-port Fast Ethernet, and single-port Gigabit Ethernet cards
Hardware VPN Acceleration
¡E Delivers high speed VPN services through the addition of either a VPN
Accelerator Card (VAC) or a VPN Accelerator Card+ (VAC+)-Unrestricted
(UR), Failover (FO), and Failover-Active/Active (FO-AA) models have integrated
hardware VPN acceleration services
Integration with Leading Third-Party Solutions
¡E Supports the broad range of Cisco Technology Developer partner solutions
that provide URL filtering, content filtering, virus protection, scalable
remote management, and more
Industry Certifications and Evaluations
¡E Earned numerous leading industry certifications and evaluations, including:
¡VCommon Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level 4 (EAL4)
¡VICSA Labs Firewall 4.0 Certification, Corporate RSSP
Category
Advanced Firewall Services
Stateful Inspection Firewall
¡E Provides wide-range of perimeter network security services to prevent
unauthorized network access
¡E Delivers robust stateful inspection firewall services
which track the state of all network communications
¡E Provides flexible access-control capabilities for more
than 100 predefined applications, services, and protocols, with the ability
to define custom applications and services
¡E Supports inbound/outbound ACLs for interfaces, time-based
ACLs, and per-user/per-group policies for improved control over network
and application usage
¡E Simplifies management of security policies by giving
administrators the ability to create re-usable network and service object
groups that can be referenced by multiple security policies, simplifying
initial policy definition and ongoing policy maintenance
Advanced Application and Protocol Inspection
¡E Integrates 30 specialized inspection engines that provide rich application
control and security services for protocols such as Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Extended Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (ESMTP), Domain Name System (DNS), Simple Network Management
Protocol (SNMP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), SQL*Net, Network
File System (NFS), H.323 Versions 1-4, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP),
Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP), Real-Time Streaming Protocol
(RTSP), GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP), Internet Locator Service (ILS),
Sun Remote Procedure Call (RPC), and many more
Modular Policy Framework
¡E Provides a powerful, highly flexible framework for defining flow- or
class-based policies, enabling administrators to identify a network flow
or class based on a variety of conditions, and then apply a set of customizable
services to each flow/class
¡E Improves control over applications by introducing ability
to have flow- or class-specific firewall/inspection policies, QoS policies,
connection limits, connection timers, and more
Security Contexts
¡E Enables creation of multiple security contexts (virtual firewalls) within
a single Cisco PIX Security Appliance, with each context having its own
set of security policies, logical interfaces, and administrative domain
¡E Supports four licensed levels of security contexts:
5, 10, 20, and 50 (maximum number of security contexts supported based
on model of Cisco PIX Security Appliance)
¡E Provides businesses a convenient way of consolidating
multiple firewalls into a single physical appliance or failover pair,
yet retaining the ability to manage each of these virtual instances separately
¡E Enables service providers to deliver resilient multi-tenant
firewall services with a pair of redundant appliances
Layer 2 Transparent Firewall
¡E Supports deployment of a Cisco PIX Security Appliance in a secure Layer
2 bridging mode, providing rich Layer 2-7 firewall security services for
the protected network while remaining "invisible" to devices
on each side of it
¡E Simplifies Cisco PIX Security Appliance deployments
in existing network environments by not requiring businesses to re-address
the protected networks
¡E Supports creation of Layer 2 security perimeters by
enforcing administrator defined Ethertype-based access control policies
for Layer 2 network traffic
Multi-Vector Attack Protection
¡E Provides wealth of advanced attack protection services to defend businesses
from many popular forms of attacks, including denial-of-service (DoS)
attacks, fragmented attacks, replay attacks, and malformed packet attacks
¡E Delivers advanced TCP stream reassembly and traffic
normalization services to assist in detecting hidden application and protocol
layer attacks
¡E Integrates with Cisco Network Intrusion Prevention System
(IPS) solutions to identify and dynamically block or shun hostile network
nodes
Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) Support
¡E Integrates with popular AAA services via TACACS+ and RADIUS, with support
for redundant servers for increased AAA services resiliency
¡E Provides highly flexible user and administrator authentication
services, dynamic per-user/per-group policies, and administrator privilege
control through tight integration with Cisco Secure Access Control Server
(ACS)
Robust IPSec VPN Services
Cisco Easy VPN Server
¡E Delivers feature-rich remote access VPN concentrator services for up
to 2000 remote software- or hardware-based VPN clients
¡E Pushes VPN policy dynamically to Cisco Easy VPN Remote-enabled
solutions (such as the Cisco VPN Client) upon connection, helping to ensure
that the latest corporate VPN security policies are used
¡E Performs VPN client security posture checks when a VPN
connection attempt is received, including enforcing usage of authorized
host-based security products (such as the Cisco Security Agent) and verifying
its version number and status prior to letting the remote user access
the corporate network
¡E Provides administrators precise control over what different
types of VPN clients (software client, router, VPN 3002, and PIX) are
allowed to connect based on type of client, operating system installed,
and version of VPN client software
¡E Supports automatic software updates of Cisco VPN Clients
and Cisco 3002 Hardware VPN Clients, with the ability to trigger updates
when VPN connections are established, or on-demand for currently connected
VPN clients
¡E Extends VPN reach into environments using NAT or Port
Address Translation (PAT), via support of a variety of TCP and UDP-based
NAT traversal methods including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
draft standard
Cisco VPN Client
¡E Includes a free unlimited license for the highly acclaimed, industry-leading
Cisco VPN Client
¡E Available on wide-range of platforms including Microsoft
Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP; Sun Solaris; Intel-based Linux distributions;
and Apple Macintosh OS X
¡E Provides many innovative features including dynamic
security policy downloading from Cisco Easy VPN Server-enabled products,
automatic failover to backup Easy VPN Servers, administrator customizable
distributions, and more
¡E Integrates with the award-winning Cisco Security Agent
(CSA) for comprehensive endpoint security
Site-to-Site VPN
¡E Supports IKE and IPSec VPN standards
¡E Extends networks securely over the Internet by helping
to ensure data privacy, data integrity, and strong authentication with
remote networks and remote users
¡E Improves network reliability and performance through
support of OSPF dynamic routing and reverse-route injection over site-to-site
VPN tunnels
¡E Supports 56-bit DES, 168-bit 3DES, and up to 256-bit
AES data encryption
Native Integration with Popular User Authentication Services
¡E Provides convenient method for authenticating VPN users through native
integration with popular authentication services including Microsoft Active
Directory, Microsoft Windows Domains, Kerberos, LDAP, and RSA SecurID
(without requiring a separate RADIUS/TACACS+ server to act as an intermediary)
X.509 Certificate and CRL Support
¡E Supports Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP)-based enrollment
and manual enrollment with leading X.509 solutions from Baltimore, Cisco,
Entrust, iPlanet/Netscape, Microsoft, RSA, and VeriSign
¡E Interoperates with large-scale Public Key Infrastructure
(PKI) deployments through n-tiered certificate hierarchy support
Resilient Architecture
Active/Active and Active/Standby Stateful Failover
¡E Ensures resilient network protection for businesses through the award-winning
high availability services provided by certain models of Cisco PIX 525
Security Appliances
¡E Supports Active/Standby failover services as a cost-effective
high availability solution, where one failover pair member operates in
hot-standby mode acting as a complete redundant system that maintains
current session state information for the active unit
¡E Delivers advanced Active/Active failover services where
both Cisco PIX Security Appliances in a failover pair actively pass network
traffic simultaneously and share state information bi-directionally, enabling
support for asymmetric routing environments and effectively doubling the
throughput of the failover pair for bursty network traffic conditions
¡E Supports long-distance failover enabling geographic
separation of failover pair members, providing another layer of protection
VPN Stateful Failover
¡E Maximizes VPN connection uptime with new Active/Standby stateful failover
for VPN connections
¡E Synchronizes all security association (SA) state information
and session key material between failover pair members, providing a highly
resilient VPN solution
¡E Note: this feature is available on Unrestricted (UR),
Failover (FO), and Failover-Active/Active (FO-AA) models only.
Zero-Downtime Software Upgrades
¡E Enables businesses to perform software maintenance release upgrades
on Cisco PIX Security Appliance failover pairs without impacting network
uptime or connections through the support of state-sharing between mixed
Cisco PIX Security Appliance Software versions (running version 7.0(1)
or higher)
Intelligent Networking Services
VLAN-Based Virtual Interfaces
¡E Provides increased flexibility when defining security policies and eases
overall integration into switched network environments by supporting the
creation of logical interfaces based on IEEE 802.1q VLAN tags, and the
creation of security policies based on these virtual interfaces
¡E Supports multiple virtual interfaces on a single physical
interface through VLAN trunking, with support for multiple VLAN trunks
per Cisco PIX Security Appliance
¡E Supports up to 100 total VLANs on Cisco PIX 525 Security
Appliances
QoS Services
¡E Delivers per-flow, policy-based QoS services, with support for LLQ and
traffic policing for prioritizing latency-sensitive network traffic and
limiting bandwidth usage of administrator-specified applications
¡E Enables businesses to have end-to-end QoS policies for
their extended network
OSPF Dynamic Routing
¡E Provides comprehensive OSPF dynamic routing services using technology
based on world-renowned Cisco IOS Software
¡E Offers improved network reliability through fast route
convergence and secure, efficient route distribution
¡E Delivers a secure routing solution in environments using
NAT through tight integration with Cisco PIX Security Appliance NAT services
¡E Supports MD5-based OSPF authentication, in addition
to plaintext OSPF authentication, to prevent route spoofing and various
routing-based DoS attacks
¡E Provides route redistribution between OSPF processes,
including OSPF, static, and connected routes
¡E Supports load balancing across equal-cost multipath
routes
PIM Multicast Routing
¡E Streamlines the delivery of multimedia traffic in video-conferencing,
collaborative computing, and mission critical real-time enterprise applications
through full PIM-Sparse Mode v2 and Bidirectional-PIM routing support
(based on world-class Cisco IOS multicast technology)
IPv6 Networking
¡E Provides access control and deep inspection firewall services for native
IPv6 network environments and mixed IPv4/IPv6 network environments through
dual-stack support
¡E Delivers IPv6-enabled inspection services for HTTP,
FTP, SMTP, ICMP, TCP, and UDP-based applications
¡E Supports SSHv2, telnet, HTTP/HTTPS, and ICMP-based management
over IPv6
Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) Server
¡E Provides DHCP server services on one or more interfaces, allowing devices
to obtain IP addresses dynamically
¡E Includes extensions for automated provisioning of Cisco
IP phones and Cisco SoftPhone IP telephony solutions
DHCP Relay
¡E Forwards DHCP requests from internal devices to an administrator-specified
DHCP server, enabling centralized distribution, tracking and maintenance
of IP addresses
NAT/PAT Support
¡E Provides rich dynamic, static, and policy-based NAT, and PAT services
Flexible Management Solutions
CiscoWorks VPN/Security Management Solution (VMS)
¡E Provides a comprehensive management suite for large scale Cisco security
product deployments
¡E Integrates policy management, software maintenance and
security monitoring in a single management console
Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM)
¡E World-class Web-based GUI enables simple, secure remote management of
Cisco PIX Security Appliances
¡E Provides a wide range of informative, real-time, and
historical reports which give critical insight into usage trends, performance
baselines, and security events
Auto Update
¡E Provides "touchless" secure remote management of Cisco PIX
Security Appliance configuration and software images via a unique "push/pull"
management model
¡E Next-generation secure Extensible Markup Language (XML)
over HTTPS management interface can be used by Cisco and third-party management
applications for remote Cisco PIX Security Appliance configuration management,
inventory, software image management/deployment and monitoring
¡E Integrates with CiscoWorks Management Center for Firewalls
and Auto Update Server for robust, scalable remote management of up to
1000 Cisco PIX Security Appliances (per management server)
Cisco PIX Command Line Interface (CLI)
¡E Allows customers to use existing Cisco IOS Software CLI knowledge for
easy installation and management without additional training
¡E Supports improved ease-of-use with services such as
command completion, context-sensitive help, and command aliasing
¡E Accessible through variety of methods including console
port, Telnet, and SSHv2
Command-Level Authorization
¡E Gives businesses the ability to create up to 16 customizable administrative
roles/profiles for managing a Cisco PIX Security Appliance (monitoring
only, read-only access to configuration, VPN administrator, firewall/NAT
administrator, etc.)
¡E Uses either the internal administrator database or outside
sources via TACACS+, such as Cisco Secure ACS
SNMP and Syslog Support
¡E Provides remote monitoring and logging capabilities, with integration
into Cisco and third-party management applications
¡E Supports Cisco IPSec Flow Monitoring SNMP MIB, providing
a wealth of VPN flow statistics including tunnel uptime, bytes/packets
transferred, and more
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