Versa Networks achieves highest rating in Cloud Network Firewall Comparative evaluation by CyberRatings.org

Consumers no longer buy a security offering (such as a firewall or an anti-virus) as a static product. Instead, most modern cyber security products rely on cloud services that provide ongoing protection. As a result, consumers are purchasing a product, plus a vendor’s commitment to continuing protection in the future. 

In an independent test of the Versa Networks Cloud Network Firewall (CNFW) Versa-FlexVNF-21.2.3 on Amazon Web Services by CyberRatings.org, Versa Networks achieved the highest rating (AAA) in Cloud Network Firewall Comparative evaluation.

“We are thrilled that Versa achieved a AAA rating from CyberRatings.org – a member organisation dedicated to quantifying cyber risk and providing transparency on cyber security product efficacy through testing and rating programmes. A product rated ‘AAA’ has the highest rating assigned by CyberRatings. This means the product’s capacity to meet its commitments to consumers is extremely strong,” says Andre Kannemeyer, Chief Technical Officer at Duxbury Networking, distributor of Versa Networks technology in South Africa.

The CyberRatings.org 2022 Product Test report for Cloud Network Firewall included:

1. The evaluation of vendors based on capabilities considered essential in a firewall, including basic routing, access control, SSL/TLS decryption, threat prevention (exploits), evasion, performance, stability and reliability, and management.
2. Key findings from the test based on the performance of security vendors with AWS as the public cloud service.
3. Recommendations on customers can enhance their security and performance capabilities; and how customers can identify and assess potential vendors for the appropriate solution.

The instance used for this test was c5.9xlarge (36 vCPU, 72 GB memory, and 10+ Gbps network bandwidth). “Threat protection was excellent; Versa blocked 35 out of 35 evasion techniques and 977 out of 977 exploits. The device passed all stability and reliability tests. The HTTP rated throughput was 1 000Mbps; TLS/HTTPS rated throughput was 929Mbps, giving Versa an excellent combined rated throughput of 965Mbps. With excellent security and performance, this product is a strong offering and should be considered by enterprises,” said the report.

The report covered several areas, where Versa had a flawless score:

• Authentication – The management console supports four role-based access control (RBAC) methods for the following users: Dashboard Operator, Operator, Security Admin, Super Admin. Additionally, these user profiles can be edited and custom roles can be created – providing administrators with a lot of flexibility when creating admin accounts, restricting access to certain parts of the organisation, and read-only access to features like reporting. The system supports third-party authentication through Active Directory, RADIUS, TACACS+, KERBEROS and LDAP.
• Policy – Versa supports creating and saving multiple policies. Admins then create multiple groups and apply policies easily configured from the GUI.
• Logging – This is very robust and includes everything from policy changes, deployment, unsuccessful logins, hardware failure and malicious traffic. Log file maintenance includes archiving, rotating log files, restoring and reporting from the archive. Furthermore, Versa offers extensive integration with third parties for log handling.
• Alert handling – All alerts are delivered to and handled by a single pane of glass.
• Reporting – The system provides summary reporting on all alerts in a single central management console. It also offers built-in reports covering typical requirements such as a list of bandwidth used, users, top applications and SLA violations, and it supports reporting format standards such as Syslog, CEF and IETF.
• Change control, rollback and revision history are available.
• Routing and policy enforcement AAA – Access control is the primary responsibility of a firewall. This test validates that the firewall enforces security policies over a range of policy environments, from simple to complex.
• SSL/TLS functionality AAA – As of 13 May 2022, data collected by W3Techs[i] showed that over 79.3% of web traffic is encrypted (HTTPS). To confirm that the firewall was correctly decrypting SSL/TLS traffic, CyberRatings conducted a functional validation test prior to performance testing. Cipher suites are selected based on the published current frequency of use[ii] and security status.[iii]
• Threat prevention – A cloud network firewall is a mechanism used to protect a trusted network from an untrusted network while allowing authorised communications to pass from one side to the other, thus facilitating secure business use of the internet. Versa blocked 100% of exploits and provided 100% resistance to evasions.
• Long-term stability is essential for a firewall, where failure can produce network outages. These tests verified the firewall’s stability and its ability to maintain security effectiveness while under normal load and while passing malicious traffic. The product was required to remain operational and stable throughout these tests and to block 100% of previously blocked traffic, raising an alert for each. Again, Versa scored 100%.

For more information, contact Duxbury Networking, (+27) 011 351 9800, info@duxnet.co.za, www.duxbury.co.za.

[i] Usage Statistics of Default Protocol HTTPS for Websites as of May 13, 2022, https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ce-httpsdefault

[ii] Published international daily cipher suite usage can be found at https://crawler.ninja/files/ciphers.txt

[iii] A list of cipher suites and associated attributes including security ratings can be found at https://ciphersuite.info/cs/