A hardware firewall the size of an USB stick

Feb 1, 2008 10:48 GMT  ·  By

Yogie Security Systems has just released The Firestick Pro hardware firewall targeted at mobile users. The device is the size of an USB pen drive and includes a standalone mini-computer to regulate network traffic. The hardware firewall is intended to replace the conventional software anti-hacking solutions, with increased efficiency and ease of use.

Based on the previous experience with the former Gatekeeper USB hardware firewall, the new device from Yogie brings a smaller consumer-oriented hardware dongle embodied by the Firestick Pro. The device is USB 2.0 compatible and comes with a 321 MHz CPU, while the former gatekeeper had a 520Mhz CPU core clock. Although the new version is "slower" than the Gatekeeper, it is more affordable and easier to implement.

The USB hardware firewall provides the most important protection applications and is a must-have device if you are constantly using public Internet hotspots or if you are stealthily "eavesdropping" at you neighbor's wireless Internet connection. The device is fully mobile and is specially designed to be used in conjunction with laptop PCs or ultra-mobile computers. It can be even attached to the keychain, just to make sure that yo don't misplace it somewhere.

The Firestick Pro comes with 32 MB of SD-DRAM, 32MB of NAND flash and 4MB of NOR flash memory that would run the firewall software and the Kaspersky Antivirus security suite. The hardware security device is listed for $119, that covers the dongle's price as well as one year of subscription for the antivirus software.

Unless you are a security paranoid, the device can provide more than you will ever need. Should you need more protection, you can always call in the Gatekeeper big gun, that runs a Snort intrusion detection system (IDS and IPS), HTTP proxy, SMTP proxy, POP3 and FTP proxies to go along with the basic functions of the Firestick Pro.