Basingstoke, UK: Barracuda Networks, Inc., a leading provider of security and storage solutions, has announced the release of Barracuda Firewall, the first firewall with a full next-generation feature set designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized organisations.

Next-generation firewalls add the ability to inspect traffic more deeply than just at the level of network protocol and port, in order to regain control over today’s evasive applications. In addition, they relate this information to individual users, enabling granular regulation of traffic. Until now, however, they have been expensive, cumbersome to use, and designed to meet the needs of very large corporations with dedicated IT security personnel. In contrast, the Barracuda Firewall was designed from the ground up to deliver next-generation functionality in an easy-to-use, affordable package. Key highlights of the Barracuda Firewall include:

“The Barracuda Firewall is not like other mid-market firewalls,” said Klaus Gheri, Vice President Product Management Europe, at Barracuda Networks. “It offloads content filtering and malware protection to the cloud, which brings a lot of benefits. Your investment is protected, since upgrades to deal with new kinds of threats happen transparently. Scaling up capacity is painless, thanks to the cloud’s elasticity. And the actual work of filtering content doesn’t