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| Type | Public NASDAQ OMX: SFT1V |
|---|---|
| Industry | Network Security |
| Founded | Helsinki, Finland (1990) |
| Founder(s) | Ilkka Hiidenheimo Hannu Turunen |
| Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Ilkka Hiidenheimo (Chairman & CEO) Juha Kivikoski (COO) Mikael Nyberg (CFO)[1] |
| Products | Network security Firewall IPS VPN Security appliances Virtual appliances |
| Employees | 174 (Dec 2009)[2] |
| Website | www.stonesoft.com |
Stonesoft Corporation is a publicly owned Helsinki, Finland-based vendor of network security solutions. Its product portfolio includes firewall/VPN devices, IPS (intrusion detection and prevention systems), and SSL VPN systems,[3] each available as hardware appliances, software, and VMware-certified virtual appliances.[4] Each of the components, as well as third-party devices, can be managed from the StoneGate Management Center.[5] The product portfolio differentiates through unique clustering and load balancing technologies based on the company's older StoneBeat technology, originally developed for Check Point FireWall-1.
Stonesoft does business globally, with a regional headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and sales offices throughout Europe, the Middle East, and China.
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Stonesoft started as a systems integrator in the Nordic regions of Europe. In 1994 it introduced StoneBeat, a technology for creating a high availability pair of firewalls in an active-passive configuration. In 1999, the company extended StoneBeat with a patented load balancing clustering technology,[6] launching StoneBeat FullCluster. It was one of the first technologies certified in Check Point's OPSEC program.[7]
In 2001, Stonesoft expanded its product set into the firewall/VPN space, becoming a direct competitor to Check Point. The StoneGate Firewall/VPN was launched on March 19, 2001. In January 2003, the company introduced the first virtual firewall/VPN solution, for IBM mainframes.[8]
Stonesoft's current product portfolio can be divided into four major categories[3]:
The StoneGate Firewall/VPN has placed in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls for several years, and is currently placed in the niche quadrant.[9] Gartner notes that Stonesoft "serves a set of placements well – usually, high availability is key or when the leaders are otherwise not welcome".[9] The StoneGate firewall/VPN is regarded for its "robust performance and feature set relative to company resources, and it has a loyal customer base".[9]
The StoneGate IPS has also placed in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Network Intrusion Prevention. It is also certified by ICSA Labs Network Intrusion Prevention and Detection category, and is one of only four vendors in the consortium to achieve that certification.[10]
In 2008, the Helsinki Court of Appeal issued a decision in a case brought against Stonesoft and several members of its management team. The court "held that two members of the company's board of directors and a former CEO through gross negligence had failed to give a profit warning in due time".[11] The issue at hand was discrepancies between the profitability forecasted in the company's year 2000 interim reports and the actual state of the company at that time. The reports indicated the company was sound and profitable, yet "a profit warning should in fact have been issued".[11] The District Court of Helsinki had originally dismissed the claims in a decision on November 15, 2006.[12]