Juniper Networks Inc. today introduced new firewall appliances and software tools designed to help companies more effectively secure their infrastructure. 

NYSE-listed Juniper is a major provider of networking equipment. It sells routers, switches and related hardware products along with software for managing those systems. The company generated $1.43 billion in revenue last quarter, a 13% increase from the same time a year earlier. 

Juniper is expanding its hardware portfolio with four new firewall appliances that enterprises can use to block malicious traffic in their networks. The appliances are known as the SRX1600, SRX2300, SRX4300 and SRX4700. According to the company, a firewall environment powered by the devices can scan up to 1.4 terabits of network traffic per second for threats.

The appliances include a technology called MACsec that helps improve the security of Ethernet networks. It can encrypt the data that travels through an Ethernet link to prevent eavesdropping attempts. Additionally, MACsec embeds a cryptographic signature in network requests that prevents hackers from tampering with traffic. 

For added measure, Juniper has equipped its new firewall appliances with TPM 2.0 chips. Those are tamper-resistant processors designed to store sensitive data such as a system’s encryption keys. Keeping sensitive data in a chip with built-in cybersecurity defenses reduces the risk of breaches.

“As new distributed data center architectures create more blind spots and operational complexity, it is vital to have advanced security capabilities that can adapt with the transformation,” said Shishir Singh, the senior vice president of Juniper’s Core Technologies and Security group. 

Juniper is launching the new firewalls alongside a technology called the Connected Security Distributed Services Architecture. It’s rolling out for the company’s MX series of data center routers. According to the company, the technology will ease port forwarding and load balancing tasks for customers.

Systems deployed inside a corporate network must often connect to infrastructure located outside it. Such connections typically require internal systems to divulge their IP addresses, which can create cybersecurity risks. Port forwarding, the first feature Juniper’s new Connected Security Distributed Services Architecture provides, removes the need to divulge internal IP addresses.

The technology’s other selling point is that it allows Juniper customers to use their MX routers for load balancing. That’s the process of evenly spreading out network traffic among multiple systems. Without load balancing, there’s a risk that all the traffic will flow to a single system and overwhelm it.

As part of today’s product updates, Juniper is also adding new software features to its Connected Security portfolio of cybersecurity tools. Most of the new features focus on protecting employees from malicious websites. They’re rolling out alongside a machine learning capability that promises to ease the task of detecting and blocking malicious traffic.

Photo: Juniper Networks