SonicWall Security Announces SonicOS 6.2.5 for SonicWALL Next-Generation Firewalls

Today, I am very excited to share with you the SonicOS 6.2.5 release for our 6^th generation SonicWall TZ, NSA and SuperMassive Next-Generation firewalls. SonicOS 6.2.5 brings many new features that span across SMB, distributed enterprise and high-end deployments. Further, SonicOS 6.2.5 simplifies support for SonicWall Security partners by offering a single software platform for majority of the 6^th generation  SonicWall firewalls.

Highlights of SonicOS 6.2.5

• SMB and distributed enterprises are challenged by the diverse management solutions involved in managing the security, switching and wireless access points for their network infrastructure. With the new SonicWall X-Series switch integration feature, SonicOS 6.2.5 delivers a consolidated management of all network infrastructure including TZ firewalls, X-Series switches, SonicPoints and WAN Acceleration devices from within the TZ Series firewalls.
• Recently published 2016 SonicWall Security Annual Threat Report highlighted the surge in encrypted traffic as one of the major trends observed in 2016. With the need to address effective TLS/SSL inspection, multiple DPI SSL Enhancements have been added to the new SonicOS 6.2.5 release. Few of these key enhancements include but not limited to "“
  • CFS category-based exclusion/inclusion of encrypted connections for efficient standards compliance (PCI, HIPPA)
  • Strengthened Encryption Methods (TLS 1.2, SHA256)
  • Increased default Certificate Authority (CA) database
  • Improved troubleshooting for encrypted connection failures with one-click exclude
  • Finer granularity for encrypted connection exclusions based on alternate domain names (excluding youtube.com vs. *.google.com)
  • Refreshed GUI for easy-to-use configuration of encrypted connection processing
  • Increased SSL Connection counts for NSA and SM Series firewalls
  • Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Product List (APL) enhancements SonicWall firewalls are now qualified for use by Department of Defense (DoD) agencies in the United States. Multiple enhancements including addition of new administrator roles, Out-of-band management, enhanced audit logging and IPv6 features were added to support UC APL certification that is now available for all customers running SonicOS 6.2.5.
  • Firewall Sandwich support and Wire mode VLAN translation features provide flexible and scalable solutions for datacenter deployments
  • Gateway Anti-Virus Detection Only Mode to support deployments where traffic containing viruses are logged but not blocked.
  • Flexible DPI actions for administrators to exclude/include traffic by protocols/DPI service/Application rule action.
  • Botnet Source identification in AppFlow Monitor to quickly view the individual user of IP address associated with the detected applications.
  • Wireless DFS Certification for FCC U-NII (Unlicensed-National Information Infrastructure) to ensure compliance for all customer SonicWall wireless appliances (SonicPoint ACe/ACi/N2)

This is exactly what our partners and customers are asking for. Our partners are active in the SonicOS 6.2.5 beta and are looking forward to all of these rich features to provide even greater security to their customers.

"We are excited about theSonicOS 6.2.5 release because it delivers the ability to control the most crucial elements of your network from a single pane of glass. Customers can now manage the Internet Security Appliance, Secure Wireless Network, and Network Switching from a single console. This is great news for customers and IT administrators, as it simplifies administration and support. This is a big gain for distributed enterprise as well, as this release also allows each of these components to be controlled from the SonicWall Global Management System. Western NRG is excited to have this functionality available in our own GMS instance, where we support hundreds of our customers' SonicWall's," said Tim Martinez, CEO of Western NRG, a premier SonicWall Partner.

With the SonicOS 6.2.5 release we have made huge strides to make the life of a security officer easier to do more with less and reduce the complexity of network management. All of the important enhancements of this release are available at no additional cost to customers with valid support contracts for SonicWall Next-Generation Firewalls or Unified Threat Management appliances. SonicOS 6.2.5 firmware is available as an Early Availability release on www.mysonicwall.com for customers with a valid support contract.

SonicOS 6.2.5 is available on the following platforms:

- SOHO W, TZ300, TZ300 W, TZ400, TZ400 W, TZ500, TZ500 W, TZ600
- NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, NSA 6600
- SuperMassive SM 9200, SM 9400, SM 9600

To dive deeper into how to have a centrally managed network security infrastructure, download our release notes and the: The Distributed Enterprise and the SonicWall TZ - Building a Coordinated Security Perimeter.