Review: Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro internet security

Pocket-sized USB internet security suite

At work, you’ll most likely regard the firewall as that thing the IT department uses to stop you larking around on the likes of Myspace all day.

If you had the time and the inclination to take a look at it, you would probably find either a PC of some kind dedicated to the task, or a rack-mounted appliance standing guard between your precious network and the anarchy of the internet.

On your own PC, firewall software is now a sad fact of life. However, even the most advanced of these packages are not enough to ensure the security of a business. Any software running on your PC can be compromised or disabled.

Software security suites also divert a portion of your PC’s computing power away from running your applications or games and require user intervention when updates and fixes are required.

The Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro is a pocket-sized internet security appliance that’s small and light enough for you to take with you wherever you take your laptop. It has a self-contained USB connector on a rubberised cable that tucks away neatly into the case and a tidy, designer appearance that’s in keeping with modern executive style.

It’s USB-powered and houses a silent, passively-cooled 520MHz CPU running the Hardened Linux operating system. All security functions are performed by the Yoggie Gatekeeper, leaving your PC’s CPU free to run the applications it was intended for.

Installation is very simple provided you follow the Quick Start guide. If you’re running Windows XP, you can use the USB connection either on its own, or in conjunction with a wired Ethernet connection.

If you use it as a purely USB device, all network traffic is diverted via the Yoggie Gatekeeper before your PC gets to examine any data packets. When used in this way, it can therefore protect either wired or wireless connections using your PC’s built-in network hardware. The use of the driver also means that connection to the internet is immediately disabled if the Yoggie Gatekeeper is unplugged by the user.

Alternatively, if you’re on a wired network, you can plug a network cable into the internet side of the Yoggie Gatekeeper.

If you’re not running Windows XP, you won’t be able to use the USB driver (Vista support for this function is on the way), but you can still use the Yoggie Gatekeeper in pass-through mode by connecting it between your PC and the network using a pair of Ethernet cables. In this configuration it’s entirely independent of your host operating system.

At home, if you have a router connected to a broadband modem via Ethernet, you can connect the Yoggie Gatekeeper between the two to protect up to five PCs on your home network.

Configuration is via a simple password-protected Web-based interface. A dashboard-style front page displays firewall statistics in terms of threats prevented, while the following pages provide very simple control over the Yoggie Gatekeeper’s many security features. It can also generate comprehensive reports for later perusal.

These include a stateful inspection firewall with port forwarding; a VPN client; intrusion detection and prevention; transparent proxies for HTTP, FTP, POP3 and SMTP; anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and anti-phishing.

These proxies provide full content filtering for parental control or to enforce office internet usage policy. They also ensure that all incoming and outgoing emails are checked by the Yoggie Gatekeeper before they reach your PC. Because they’re transparent, no additional configuration is required on your PC, which appears to connect to all Internet services as normal.

All of these options are easy to configure and manage and you don’t need to be a security expert to set anything up.

Included in the price is a one-year subscription to automatic updates for Yoggie Gatekeeper, which will keep you up to date with the latest internet threats.

In a business environment, Yoggie Gatekeeper has the ability to work in corporate mode. In this configuration it connects to a Yoggie Management Server that has the ability to manage a fleet of Yoggie Gatekeepers enforcing policies and managing logs from a number of users centrally.

Yoggie Gatekeeper makes internet security entirely transparent for users. It manages its own software updates in the background and keeps their PCs free of complicated security suite software. It also employs cutting edge security techniques without being a drain on the PC’s performance. And with a throughput of around 20Mb/sec, all but the very fastest internet connections of ADSL2+ and above will suffer no slow-down from the use of Yoggie Gatekeeper.