WatchGuard XTM 23-W review

The other two SSIDs can bridge with any one of the six available network ports and security has been beefed up with a WPA Enterprise option which uses certificate-based authentication. The new rogue AP detection worked well during testing with it spotting all APs in our office building but it is of limited value. When rogue detection is running it disables all of the appliance’s SSIDs. A scheduler is provided so you can run it when you want, but this issue does limit its usefulness and it’s not advisable to run it during working hours.

The WebBlocker URL filtering service can be configured on a per-policy basis and has over fifty categories that can be blocked or allowed. We tested this with a number of client systems and found we could easily block access to work sapping web sites with very few slipping through WebBlocker’s net.

The Commtouch hosted service looks after anti-spam and is easy to configure as you enable the POP3 and SMTP proxies in your policy and decide how to handle suspect messages. However, if you choose not to use the quarantine server then you can only tag suspect messages and pass them on to be handled by your mail server or client.

WatchGuard’s application awareness gives you more control over Facebook activities with specific controls for handling logins, web mail and chat. We also tested this with Windows Live Messenger and found we could use policies to decide whether users were allowed to login, transfer files, play games or chat.

P2P come under its remit and the list of predefined apps includes BitTorrent allowing policies to be used to control login access and file transfers. WatchGuard’s application list also includes remote control apps such as RDP and GoToMyPC so you can decide who is allowed to use these.

The XTM 23-W is a significant update to WatchGuard’s XTM appliances and shows it has a much sharper focus on small businesses that want to manage their own gateway security. The range of new features introduced with this appliance is impressive and a lot more tasks have been automated making it much easier to manage.

So what's our verdict?