Leading Industry Report Stresses Importance of Firewalls for Unified Threat Management in Mid-Sized Enterprises to Meet Regulatory Demands

Dubai - November 8th, 2010: SonicWALL, Inc. the leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced it has been positioned in the "Leaders" quadrant of the October 2010 Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management (UTM) by Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. The evaluation is based on completeness of vision and ability to execute. In their report, Gartner analysts Joe Pescatore and Bob Walder analyze the importance of UTM firewall deployments for businesses generating up to $1 billion in revenue and for distributed businesses grappling with regulartory requirements such as Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards. According to the authors, the UTM Firewall market was worth approximately $1.5 billion in 2009 and is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% to 25% through 2012.

UTM firewalls tightly integrate the key functions required to meet the security needs of businesses.

In the report, Gartner identifies "the most important security controls" of UTM appliances as:

  • Standard network stateful firewall functions

  • Remote access and site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) support

  • Web security gateway functionality (anti-malware, URL and content filtering)

  • Network intrusion prevention focused on blocking attacks against unpatched Windows PCs and servers

The Gartner report defines UTM market leaders as "vendors at the forefront of making and selling multifunction firewall products that are built for midsize business requirements. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize business use cases, support for multiple features, and a management and reporting capability that's designed for ease of use. Vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features, and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens. These vendors also have a good track record of avoiding vulnerabilities in their security products. Common characteristics include reliability, consistent throughput, and a product that's intuitive to manage and administer."

"We believe our position in the 'Leaders' quadrant confirms our ability to execute in the marketplace and underscores our strong and stable business execution," said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of product management and corporate marketing at SonicWALL. "We have consistently delivered innovative and competitively disruptive solutions that have shaped and transformed the market. SonicWALL TZ and Network Security Appliance (NSA) Series UTM firewalls help our customers secure their network environments with intelligent solutions that adapt as threats continue to evolve. We invest heavily in hardware and product development and continue to receive vital industry certifications such as IPv6 Phase 2, ICSA, FIPS and Common Criteria EAL4+. Going beyond even UTM, our feature sets go further by incorporating granular Application Intelligence, Control and Visualization capabilities."

For more information please visit www.sonicwall.com.

To view a copy of "Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management," compliments of SonicWALL, go to http://bit.ly/Gartner_UTM_MQ

Watch video "Next Generation Firewalls - Bringing Order to Application Chaos Across and Beyond the Enterprise": http://bit.ly/NGFW_GRTNR_Video

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About SonicWALL, Inc:
SonicWALL is committed to improving the performance and productivity of businesses of all sizes by engineering the cost and complexity out of running a secure network. Over one million SonicWALL appliances have been shipped through its global network of ten thousand channel partners to keep tens of millions of worldwide business computer users safe and in control of their data. SonicWALL's award-winning solutions include network security, secure remote access, content security, backup and recovery, and policy and management technology. For more information, visit the company web site at http://www.sonicwall.com/.

Safe Harbor Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements regarding the benefits associated with the Customer Advantage Program and the benefits associated with implementing the applicable SonicWALL product lines. These forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the time the statements are made and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. In addition, please see the "Risk Factors" described in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, for a more detailed description of the risks facing our business. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to SonicWALL as of the date of the release, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement.

NOTE: SonicWALL is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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© Press Release 2010