I’m currently working on some very unscientific tests of various UTM Firewall features, and came across an interesting observation regarding SonicWALL’s Gateway Anti-virus feature. It is very dependent on having the box for “Restrict Transfer of packed executable files” being checked to be effective. In my testing the effectiveness of the SonicWALL dropped 12% with this option turned off.

In more fun preview news, the Calyptix AccessEnforcer passed with a 100% rating, and actually blocked almost 10% with the IPS alone. Interesting to see the difference in the IPS and packed executables check box being close to the same.

More to come soon, have a lot of other boxes to test. And if you are wondering, I’m simply following the testing methodology from the Untangle Fight Clubs. They seem to leave themselves out in a lot of tests, so I wanted to put them in a set of tests along with the Calyptix box as I sell their product (and truly believe in it) and am interested to see how they stack up against the big boys in a test that other people have designed.