Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is aiding e-commerce services on the Web, can now sport a firewall to dissuade hackers and viruses. Security giant Forum Systems has joined hands with Computer Associates to integrate its XWall Web Services Firewall with the latter’s eTrust Antivirus software to prevent worms, viruses, and malicious codes from infecting networks through XML codes.
“Virus attackers are looking for other ways of getting into the organization. Email and the Web are the two dominant forms now and are well protected. But XML isn’t really protected at the moment,” said Bill Mann, vice president, product management, Computer Associates.
Manual interactions between businesses are increasingly being replaced by online XML transactions. Forum Systems chief executive Wes Swenson said that XML viruses would become more frequent as more and more people store Office documents in XML format and as programmers increasingly use the Simple Object Access Protocol, written in XML, in tools for business interaction. “When you do have an XML-based virus attack, it will affect mission-critical servers as opposed to email server and Web servers,” he said.
The new XML anti-virus package would be available May 1 onwards at a cost ranging from US$ $5000 to US$ 40000.
Presently, the XWall firewall comes equipped with WSDL Access Control, XML Schema Restriction, XML Intrusion Protection, and WS-I Profile conformance. The new combined pack would have additional firewall filters to read all XML traffic, Soap documents and attachments.
