Gsec1 Prodigy Pro

The Prodigy Pro is an Internet security management (ISM) system designed for small businesses with up to 10 computers.

Similar to other products within this very competitive market, it provides an integrated security solution for the small to medium-sized business. What makes it stand out, however, is its insurance policy.

Indemnity protection cover insurance will pay out up to £5,000 if you become victim to a security breach resulting in a loss of earnings, as long as a certified engineer has installed the unit.

Gsec1 is obviously confident in its product, and there is little the unit doesn’t do on the security front. Firewall protection, intrusion detection system (IDS), anti-virus, email and content filtering, bandwidth management and much more are all included as standard.

In addition, VPN (virtual private network) support for remote or branch offices is configurable and a range of alerts can be set up – you can be notified by email or SMS text message.

Set up and maintained through the Prodigy control centre software, it has an easy-to-follow wizard making it straightforward to connect to the device and register the unit. Each area has advanced controls allowing you to keep tight reins on the network.

Additional software has to be installed onto each client for VPN and anti-virus protection.

The Prodigy Pro device is let down by the lack of wireless features, although Gsec1 hopes to incorporate wireless into the Prodigy Pro some time in 2006. ADSL2 support is also missing.

Another drawback with this particular model is that it only supports a maximum of 10 users, which limits scalability. There are other models in the Prodigy range that support many more clients, but you’ll have to shell out more for them.

Overall, it’s a reasonably priced system that is crammed full of security features. By making it easy to set up and maintain, as well as offering indemnity protection cover, Gsec1 makes the Prodigy Pro very appealing for small businesses.