Security Reviews

Unified Threat Management: Two Extremes

At the top of this piece, I said that Yoggie is the second "UTM" device that I've reviewed. So let's compare the two. Table 2 summarizes the ways that the D-Link DSD-150 and Yoggie Gatekeepr Pro differ.

Feature	D-Link DSD-150	Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro
System Components	Backend, Gateway Hardware, Client Software	Backend, Gateway Hardware, Client Software
Minimum Configuration	Backend, Gateway Hardware, Client Software	Backend, Gateway Hardware
Delay Between Install and Full Protection	Approximately 24 hrs	0
Portability	Low	High
PC Speed Impact	High	Low
Cross Platform?	Windows Only	"Almost" Platform Neutral
Enterprise IT Value	Low	High

Table 2: D-Link/Yoggie Comparison

System Components: The D-Link DSD-150 is a client-PC-based software product. It starts out with a small 300K client on each PC. But, after install, while you are not looking, it slips 20 MB of client software from its back end over the Internet and on to each client. This large software library then talks with the DSD-150's hardware gateway to protect client computers.

Minimum Configuration: The Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro is an in-line Linux firewall in a USB-key size that also has backend and client-PC system components. However, the Yoggie can be used, all by itself, out of the box, to protect a laptop in a hotel. Yoggie provides immediate protection up to its capabilities. But the D-Link system needs all three system components in-place to work, which typically take a day to download.

Portability: The D-Link isn't really portable. It is designed to be built into a SOHO LAN. The Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro is portable. The main mission-critical burning need that Yoggie addresses is to protect laptops in hostile environments.

PC Speed Impact: Because the D-Link relies on large client-based programs to protect, it causes a substantial degradation in computer speed. Because Yoggie performs the vast majority of filtering tasks off the client, it does not degrade PC performance as much. The risk with Yoggie is that it won't be able to keep up with incoming packets, but in my testing I did not sense any bottlenecking from the Gatekeeper appliance.

Cross Platform: I rate the Yoggie Gatekeeper as "almost" platform neutral. The one barrier between Yoggie's current product and platform neutrality is the software padlocking the user into using the Gatekeeper Pro. There is no Mac or Ubuntu program that shuts off Internet access if the Gatekeeper appliance is not plugged in to the computer. While some business users can be expected to always remember to plug in their Yoggie appliance, your kids might "forget".

Enterprise IT Value: D-Link isn't enterprise oriented. The Yoggie Gatekeeper pro provides automatic logging of client PC activity, and the automatic log transfers back to the mother-ship, in its enterprise versions.

Finally, the D-Link DSD-150 and Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro differ in where the majority of security protection work is done. Table 3 shows that D-Link does most of its work on the backend and on the client PC. Very little is actually done in the DSD-150 itself.

Activity	On-Backend	On-Appliance	On-PC
Intrusion Detection	45%	10%	45%
Email Spam Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Porn Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Download Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Spyware Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Virus Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Phishing Filtering	45%	10%	45%
Firewalling	45%	10%	45%
Web-Ad Filtering	45%	10%	45%

Table 3: What Does the Heavy Lifting? DSD-150

Table 4 shows that Yoggie splits its work pretty evenly between the backend and the appliance itself. The exception is Kaspersky, splitting spyware and virus filtering between the PC and the backend.

Activity	Backend	Appliance	On-PC	Package
Intrusion Detection	50%	49%	1%	Snort
Email Spam Filtering	50%	49%	1%	MailShell
Porn Filtering	50%	49%	1%	SurfControl
Download Filtering
Spyware Filtering	50%		50%	Kaspersky
Virus Filtering	50%		50%	Kaspersky
Phishing Filtering	50%	49%	1%	MailShell
Firewalling		99%	1%
Web-Ad Filtering	50%	49%	1%	SurfControl

Table 4: What Does the Heavy Lifting? Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro