February 6, 2005 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Web host The Planet, which recently caused a freedom of speech controversy for pulling the plug on the Iranian Student News Agency website, has introduced OZONE, a security solution that implements an access control list (ACL) on clients’ virtual local area network (VLAN) interfaces which protects against attacks through unused TCP and UDP ports.
"OZONE lets our customers lock down their servers to allow only common Internet ports that their servers need to function, and no more," said Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering for The Planet.
Whenever a server is accessible through the Internet, the network is open to attack. Unused applications and services created during installation of the operating system leaves TCP/UDP ports exposed, adding to that vulnerability. OZONE uses ACLs to filter out unwanted traffic through those ports, and creates a logical, intuitive mechanism for defining security policies.
"New system and network vulnerabilities are discovered daily," said Mr. Moseley. "The Planet’s dedicated Security Engineers continually review Internet threats and can add or remove ports for OZONE customers that are at risk of attack."
Customers can choose one filter per VLAN and add or remove filters using The Planet’s proprietary web portal, ORBIT. The new security solution can be added to customers’ new or existing VLANs with a number of rule-based packet filters available for a range of environments, including Windows 2000 and 2003, Unix (Redhat, FreeBSD, Debian), OS-neutral, game server and generic-deny environments.
"OZONE provides an added layer of protection," Mr. Moseley said, "at an incredibly affordable price."
