By Terry Currier
Okay, up front the TrustELI Network Security Appliance is
not on the low end of routers. But, this is not a low end product. Eli comes
with a slew of features, which comes down to one word – protection. The Eli
feature set includes:
Hardware firewall - A hardware firewall is more secure than a software firewall. After setting it up I went to Steve Gibson’s web site (www.grc.com) to test it. Before with just a software firewall I still had a port open when running the leak test. With this it said I was in total stealth. TrustELI utilizes the same technologies used to protect large enterprises. Stateful Inspection firewalls are the most secure firewalls available today. It secures both inbound and outbound.
Anti-Virus - Eli's
Anti-Virus protects your entire network. Active updating ensures against the
latest virus threats without user intervention. Eli's virus protection
software
is supplied by a German company, H+BEDV, which has been protecting computers
from viruses since 1988. Their website is at http://www.antivir.de/en/index.html
(they have a free version also.) Typically, they put out virus signature
updates at least 4 times a day. After they have verified the update, it is
pushed out to every Eli in the world in less than 30 seconds. I used to get a
virus maybe once a month that my anti-virus (AVG) would catch, and put in their
vault so it does not infect the system. With Eli it stops it before coming through
(I think I like that even more.)
Anti-Spam - Eli
prevents spam from reaching users’ in-boxes, byblocking the majority of spam
from known spammers at the gateway. Eli's anti-spam comes
from Mail Filters.
They are found at http://www.mailfilters.com.
They have a good record of checking spam with a 1 in 1,000,000 false positive
count (lucky me I got one and still did not win the lottery.) They update that
at least twice a day. When something has gotten through which it thinks is spam
it labels it as [spam]. No, it is not perfect I did still get some spam which
it did not mark, but anything that helps is a plus.
Anti-Spyware/Malware – It blocks your network from sources of spyware and malware designed to take control of your computer, modify computer settings, collect or report personal information, or other deceptive practices.
Anti-Phishing -
Protects against fraudulent web schemes designed to capture sensitive data such
as credit card numbers, pin numbers and other user information.First, they try
to stop Phishing emails with the SPAM filter. However, say one does slip
through and 
you click on the link. The content filter will block the Phishing
website.
Content Filtering – They have a very large URL database (over 5 billion URLs, powered by BlueCoat) Users choose from 64 different content categories. Phishing, Spyware, Privacy, and parental control protection are all configured on their web portal. Eli’s content filtering is updated every hour.
USB Print Server – You can set up your USB printer so all computers can share it. Interesting they tell me it works great with every printer on the market today EXCEPT for printers from Canon. Canon will not work with any network based print server due to their drivers.
Voice Over IP - VoIP today is as a pass-through. However, they will be releasing a VoIP client that runs directly on Eli. This should be out at the beginning of Q3.
VPN Support – Virtual Private Network securing data transferred from one network to another.
802.11b/g Wireless Router with 4-Port Switch – Set it up for only wired, or with wireless easily.
DSL or Cable Modem – Uses Conexant’s Viking II Plus chip for the built-in DSL Modem. This chipset is ADSL 2+ compliant. Currently, DSL users get up to 10 mbit downstream and up to 1 mbit upstream. With ADSL 2+, users can up to get 24 mbit downstream and 5 mbit upstream. Most of the major ISPs have slowly started rolling out ADSL 2+. Sprint is even offering TV over DSL for their 2+ customers.
Setting Eli up
They give a large fold-up set of instructions clearly showing how to set it up. They show how to setup the PC (Mac is in the manual), and then configure Eli for DSL, cable, or wireless. After plugging it in and setting up the PC you bring up the Internet and login to https://my.trusteli.com to configure personal security settings. When the user submits a change using the web-based User Console, the ELI Managed Services back-end sends detailed configuration data to the Eli appliance located on the user premises. Users can go there as often as they choose to modify personal security settings. I liked how after I set up for wireless it generated a WEP or WPA code for me mixing characters and numbers. That may seem like a small thing but too many people would otherwise choose to put in easy to crack pass codes.
Support
I found the support to be excellent. Telephone support is
available to TrustELI customers that are covered by warranty or an Eli Assure
Managed Services
Agreement. Support specialists are available 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. I received email replies within 24 hours. Business customers needing hardware replacement will receive
a replacement within 24 hours of the issuance of an RMA. Consumers units will
ship the same day, taking 3-5 business shipping days. Eli Assure Managed
Service offerings are as follows:
ELI Assure™ is designed to meet the needs of the small business or remote worker. The suite of managed services provides the same basic level of services included in ELI Home Security Suite™ but with the addition of detailed policy configuration capability. Users create an initial appliance configuration with the help of ELI's support staff and are granted 5 policy changes per month as part of their subscription.
To meet the specific needs of the larger enterprise, Eli will provide custom Service Level Agreement upon request, which may include the licensing of the ELI Managed Services back-end as well as the private labeling of the User Console. Using this Enterprises can maintain control and apply global, or group policies to remote end-points.
Conclusion
If you want to feel protected look into this. More money up
front, but with the crafted Eli Managed Services and level of protection this
is top notch. http://www.trusteli.com
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