Sourcefire introduces their SSL Appliance

Sourcefire announced its new SSL Appliance which enables the Sourcefire intrusion prevention system (IPS) to inspect SSL-secured traffic – blocking malicious traffic that would have previously been masked by encryption. The SSL Appliance decrypts traffic before sending it to the IPS, and the IPS can then optionally redirect the secure and visible traffic back to the SSL Appliance for re-encryption.

The appliance allows users to maintain the highest levels of data security with SSL encryption without worrying about malware or other attacks hidden within the traffic. The expanded capabilities also provide Sourcefire IPS users with SSL visibility without impacting IP Sensor performance.

Unlike on-box SSL decryption solutions that use shared hardware resources for inspection, Sourcefire’s architecture permits the IPS and SSL processes to run on separate systems, offloading all encryption and decryption requirements from the Sourcefire IPS. This provides users with greater IPS performance and scalability.

Two Sourcefire SSL Appliance models are available now, including a 4-port (fail-open) 1G fiber model and a 4-port (fail-open) 1G copper model.