VPNC Update for January, 2007

Welcome to the latest issue of the VPNC Update. We hope you find the news in this issue valuable.

VPNC Year In Review, Year Looking Forward

Both the SSL VPN and IPsec VPN markets continued to thrive during 2006. There were new vendors in both markets, and some long-time IPsec vendors added SSL VPNs to their lineups, sometimes expanding their current gateways, sometimes adding separate SSL VPN gateways.

In May, VPNC announced the SSL Javascript logo to assure SSL VPN users that a particular SSL gateway system will work correctly as a front end for a corporate web portal that uses JavaScript that includes URLs. In June, we followed that up with the SSL Flash logo to assure SSL VPN users that a particular SSL gateway system will work correctly as a front end for a corporate web portal that uses Flash applets that include URLs.

On the IPsec VPN testing front, in December VPNC announced the IKEv2 Basic Interoperability logo. This is the first IKEv2 interoperability logo in the VPN industry, and it shows that there is a definite interest in deploying IKEv2 alongside IKEv1. VPNC has already announced upcoming companion logos for IKEv2 remote access.

Systems that received the Basic and/or AES interoperability logos include those from Certicom, Internet Security Systems, Mistletoe Technologies, NETGEAR, QA Cafe, RetiCorp, TeamF1, and Viking InterWorks. New SSL VPN logos went to Cisco (for multiple systems) and SonicWALL. Over a dozen systems which had significant software upgrades were re-tested and passed the tests. There are now 57 systems with interoperability logos actively being tested and retested in the VPNC lab.

Looking forward, VPNC plans to start additional logos for both SSL and IPsec VPNs in 2007.

On the SSL side, we will add an SSL Network Extension logo this spring. These days, most SSL VPN systems support a service that goes by many names ("network extension", "port forwarding", "SSL tunneling", among others) that lets an SSL VPN user have many of the benefits that IPsec clients already have, but without having to pre-load an application on their PC. The SSL Network Extension logo will assure users that the SSL VPN gateway allows all necessary protocols such as DNS, time synchronization, and so on.
VPNC expects to add two additional logos for IKEv1, probably later in the year. Both IPv6 and Suite B cryptography are being heavily promoted by the U.S. government, and vendors are starting to line up behind both technologies. It seems that every year for the past five years has been touted to be "the year of IPv6", but few VPN vendors have fully implemented it in their IPsec gateways. That seems to be finally changing, and it looks like we will have enough IPsec gateways handling IPv6 to do interoperability testing this year. For IKEv2, in addition to the tests discussed above, we also hope to start interoperability testing for the new MOBIKE protocol.

Given all this, 2007 looks like another year of growth for the VPN industry and for VPNC.

VPNC Testing News

VPNC Requires Latest Versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox for Logo Testing

This month, VPNC upgraded the logos for all of its SSL VPN logos to require that the systems work with both versions 6 and 7 of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). We retested all the systems in the VPNC lab using both versions of IE to be sure that they all displayed correctly. This is particularly important for VPNC's SSL Exchange and SSL File Access logos because some SSL VPNs use custom HTML to wrap the pages displayed by these features. At the same time, VPNC upgraded the SSL Firefox logo to require correct working with both Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and 2.0.

All systems in the VPNC lab passed the retesting without any problems. New systems coming into the lab in the coming months will have to pass the more stringent tests from the beginning in order to receive the logos.

Additional Testing News

This month, one member with current IPsec Basic Interoperability logo received the IPsec AES Interoperability logo:

TeamF1, V-IPSecure

This month, one member with current IPsec logos had significant new software and successfully retested for both the IPsec Basic Interoperability and IPsec AES Interoperability logos:

SonicWALL, TZ and PRO products running SonicOS Enhanced (version 3.2)

This month, one member with current SSL VPN logos had significant new software and successfully retested for those logos:

Check Point, Connectra NGX (version R62)

See the VPNC testing page for full lists of all the VPNC members' products which have proven interoperability.

Recent VPNC Member Press Releases

See the VPNC member list for a complete list of VPNC members.

AEP Networks
AEP Netilla Security Platform Release 5.4 SSL VPN Now Shipping

AEP Networks
Cabinet Office Awards AEP Networks with Quality Mark for SSL VPN

Certicom
General Dynamics Licenses Certicom's Security Technology for U.S. Army Land Warrior Program

Check Point
Check Point to Acquire NFR Security

Cisco
Cisco Sells More Than 2 Million Integrated Services Routers and Introduces New Features

Cisco
Cisco and SAVVIS to Launch Next-Generation Network for Enterprise Applications

Internet Security Systems
Internet Security Systems Adds Artillery to the Battle against Spyware

Juniper
Juniper Networks Is #2 For Revenue In Overall Network Security Market

Juniper
Juniper Networks Achieves Checkmark's Highest Level Of Network Security Certification

Microsoft
Microsoft a Leader in Growing SSL VPN Market According to Independent Research Firm

Mocana
Stratus Technologies Selects Mocana As Device Security Provider

SafeNet
SafeNet Receives IKEv2 Interoperability Certification for IPSec Toolkit

Secure Computing
Secure Computing Named Reader Trust Finalist in SC Magazine Award Program and Best of 2006 in Three Categories

SonicWALL
Physical Therapy Network Relieves Security Pain With SonicWALL

SonicWALL
SonicWALL Deploys Protection Against MySpace Worm

Stonesoft
Stonesoft Focuses On Its Core Business By Selling Embe Systems Oy

TeamF1
TeamF1 Partners With EdgeSoft, Promate, Celestial

Wind River
Wind River Receives Virtual Private Network Consortium (VPNC) Certification-Illustrates Security Leadership

Upcoming VPN-related Events

RSA Conference 2007
San Francisco, California / February 5-9, 2007
The RSA Conference is one of the largest security-specific expositions in the world. It has a very wide educational track and a large exposition floor; many VPNC members exhibit at the show every year.

About This Mailing List

The VPNC Update is a low-volume, one-way newsletter to inform people about news in the VPN industry. Subscription is open to everyone, members and non-members alike. Previous issues of the newsletter can be found here. If you have questions about the content of VPNC Update, or suggestions or information for future issues, please send them to Paul Hoffman, VPNC's director.

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