Cisco ASA 5500 new software 8.2 released

A new software version 8.2 was released for the Cisco ASA 5500 appliance in mid-April 2009. All prior ASA releases (7.0, 7.2, 8.0, and 8.1) can be upgraded to version 8.2. If you have a Cisco SMARTnet services contract you can download version 8.2 free of charge. All ASA models (from 5505 up to 5580) support the new 8.2 version.

This release introduces some new features. The most important of them are the following:

• Traffic Filter for Botnet Attacks: This is a licensed feature. You need an extra yearly license fee to enable it. With this feature, the ASA appliance communicates with an external dynamic database administered by the Cisco Security Intelligence Operations center to identify botnet domains and hosts. The ASA also monitors network ports for rogue activity and detects internal hosts that might be compromised by a botnet network.
• ASA 5505 supports now IPS: With the addition of a plug-in module (AIP SSC-5) you can add IPS functionality with up to 75Mbps throughput.
• Transparent firewall mode support for IPv6 addressing: IPv6 addressing is supported in layer2 transparent firewall mode.
• Cisco ASA 5580 VLANs: The Cisco ASA 5580 now supports 250 VLANs instead of 50.
• AIP SSM modules support IPv6: Customers can send IPv6 packets from the ASA to the AIP SSM modules for both IPv6 and IPv4 IPS inspection.
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007 support: Officially supported the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for clientless SSL VPN.
• SNMPv3 support

Check out all the new features of Cisco ASA 8.2 Software HERE.