The Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliance is a high-performance, multifunction security appliance family delivering converged firewall, IPS, network anti-virus and VPN services. As a key component of the Cisco Self-Defending Network, it provides proactive threat mitigation that stops attacks before they spread through the network, controls network activity and application traffic, and delivers flexible VPN connectivity while remaining cost-effective and easy-to-manage.