First Look: New Cable/DSL Broadband Router, and PCI Adapter with Firewall

Wayne N. Kawamoto
Managing Editor, www.smallbusinesscomputing.com

SMC Networks, a provider of wired and wireless networking solutions for the home, SOHO and small-to-medium businesses, expanded its Barricade product line with the announcement of the Barricade Plus Cable/DSL Broadband Router, a next-generation router offering increased network security through an integrated Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall and VPN tunneling feature and Barricade PCI, a 10/100Mbps PCI adapter with integrated firewall protection.

Available in both wired (SMC7004FW) and 802.11b-compliant wireless (SMC7004WFW) versions, both Barricade Plus Cable/DSL Broadband routers are platform-independent, include 10/100Mbps switches, (four ports on the wired version and three ports on the wireless), and support up to five VPN tunnels. The wireless Barricade Plus supports 64- and 128-bit WEP encryption and MAC address authentication.

To enhance the security of the LAN, both versions of the Barricade Plus utilize Network Address Translation (NAT) to keep the internal network hidden from the rest of the Internet in addition to an SPI firewall that analyzes each individual packet to determine the source, destination addresses and protocol of the incoming packets to provide a more robust security solution.

The Barricade Plus supports up to five VPN tunnels via PPTP and IPSec for secure access to the corporate infrastructure. Other security features include IP and MAC address filtering, as well as Hacker Attack Prevention and Logging, a feature that detects common hacker attack patterns and alerts users via e-mail when a hacker attempts to access the network. Barricade Plus also features parental control functions including access control and URL-blocking.

According to the company, its 802.11b-compliant wireless version (SMC7004WFW) adds the ability to bridge between wired and wireless LANs and provides seamless roaming within the same subnet. MAC address filtering is provided for up to 32 MAC addresses.

Adding security to the network clients, SMC also announced its Barricade PCI 10/100 Mbps PCI Adapter with Firewall Protection (SMC1255TX-PF). The Barricade PCI Adapter combines the high-performance of a 10/100 Mbps network adapter and the functionality of a full-featured firewall into one integrated solution.

The Barricade PCI Adapter includes two free software applications – SMC Etherguard Personal Firewall and WinEtool Personal Sniffer. The SMC Etherguard application should provide an efficient software firewall that can filter traffic based on Web site name, IP address and TCP/UDP protocol while the WinEtool application monitors network traffic with a built-in Wake-on-LAN packet generator and packet analysis tool.

The adapter is designed to support full-duplex communication, auto-negotiation, Wake-on-LAN, flow control and a 32-bit transfer mode.

Availability and Pricing
The Barricade Plus Cable/DSL Broadband Router (SMC7004FW) will be available at the end of April at an estimated street price of $159. The wireless version of the Barricade Plus Cable/DSL Broadband Router (SMC7004WFW) will be available in early May at an estimated street price of $259.The PCI 10/100 Mbps PCI Adapter with Firewall Protection (SMC1255TX-PF) will be available April 30, 2002 at an estimated street price of $23.99.

Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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