The company announced this week that it has taken another step into web security as it teams with AVG Technologies, developer of the world's most popular free anti-virus software.

“Viruses and other forms of malware are among the leading causes of lost data, corrupted PCs, damaged applications, and loss of productivity,” said Scott Robertson, Regional Director ANZ, WatchGuard. “WatchGuard selected AVG so that our customers would have a no-compromise gateway anti-virus solution to best protect their networks, applications and data.

AVG anti-virus protection will be part of the firewall appliances for WatchGuard unified threat management (UTM) customers.

“It's great that WatchGuard are now delivering superior protection against zero-day threats by offering their clients the extra protection layers delivered by AVG's award-winning software,” said Lloyd Borrett, Marketing Manager for AVG ANZ. “With the optional AVG security layers in place, the WatchGuard security appliances truly become unified threat management devices.

AVG gateway anti-virus protection is available now as an optional security subscription on all new WatchGuard UTM appliances.