Web services security vendor Forum Systems has entered into a partnership with Oracle to provide additional security for production Web services.
The partnership, announced last week, means that Forum's XWall Web Services Firewall with XML Intrusion Prevention (XIP) now supports Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Application Server 10g against SOAP and XML vulnerabilities.
According to Wes Swenson, Forum's president and CEO, the XWall with XIP appliance complements Oracle's existing identity management security functionality to help identify and stop intruders, malicious activity and errors within messages.
"Oracle is always at the forefront of secure, enabling technologies," he said. "With Web services and grid computing enabled by [the 10g Oracle devices], enterprises are able to build next-generation applications using the world's most powerful and extensible platform."
Specifically, the partnership enables customers of Salt Lake City-based Forum to use the XWall appliance to share identity information across operating systems and computing environments. Swenson said that the device also enables customers to manage threat protection and trust management security policies together in one integrated framework.
In a recent report, Ray Wagner, a research director at Garnter, said that Web services deployments will suffer from the regular discovery of significant security vulnerabilities and automated attacks through at least 2006. Wagner said that Web services allow the hidden transmission of executables and other malicious content, and noted that current standards fail to address this problem.
"Perimeter security controls must evolve as quickly as enterprise Web services to detect and neutralize unplanned use," he said. Wagner added that devices such as XWall help to combat this problem, much in the same way integrated security appliances detect browser-based attacks as Internet traffic pours over gateways to a corporate network.
The XWall Web Services Firewall with XIP is available to channel partners free of charge for download from Forum Systems' Web site. Swenson noted that the appliance also is available in standalone PCI blade and hardware options.
