Security appliance specialist Yoggie Security Systems has launched a device designed to boost the security of mobile and remote users connecting to the internet from outside the corporate network.

The Yoggie Gatekeeper is a miniature computer that can be plugged into the user's corporate laptop to protect the Windows XP operating system, according to Yoggie founder and former chief executive of Finjan Software, Shlomo Touboul.

It features a firewall, URL filter, VPN client, application-level antivirus, anti-malware and spam filters, and intrusion detection and prevention systems, he added.

It also includes proxies to check web and email traffic, and a Layer 8 security engine that helps to detect viruses whose signatures are not yet known.

"Yoggie frees the laptop to be a 100 percent productivity tool, with none of the delays caused by multiple security tools [running on the machine]," explained Touboul.

The Yoggie Management Server, meanwhile, gives IT managers real-time visibility into the security status of corporate laptops and can flag up alerts when suspicious beahviour is detected by any Yoggie Gatekeeper device, he said.

"IT has to manage so many different security products," said Touboul. "We said let's take all that and pack it into a small device that [allows them] to maintain the same level of security with mobile workers as on the internal network."

Meanwhile, web security firm Sophos last week launched new functionality to help enterprise IT administrators block unauthorised voice over IP, peer-to-peer and instant messaging applications.

The Application Control feature will be an optional addition to the firm's Anti-Virus 6.0 product, and will be extended in time to cover other legitimate applications, according to Sophos' John Shaw.

"Some [IT managers] are concerned about the productivity, or about sending files that bypass their file-scanners, or about the bandwidth issues [which may arise]," he explained. "This extends [our blocking capabilities] and uses the siftware already on our customers' computers so there is no new client to control."

In separate news, a new report issued by anti-malware vendor Kaspersky Lab last week found that the number of Trojans is growing faster than that of any other type of malicious code, increasing by nine percent in the first half of this year, while the number of new variants of viruses and worms fell.