Firewalls have been around for years, but the technology keeps evolving as the threat landscape changes. Firewalls are security tools used by most companies to protect their business from internal and external harm and injuries. 

Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) are at the core of an enterprise security strategy. The best ones incorporate policy enforcement for applications, user control, intrusion prevention, deep packet inspection, sandboxing and threat intelligence feeds. Adding more and more components means there’s more to manage and update, which can decrease your efficiency by creating an unnecessarily more complex system.

Through these steps, NGFW firstly recognizes the potential network threats and then becomes aware of malware attacks, software harms, and several other external threats. Then, it works upon preventing them afterward. Here are some tips about what to look for in a next-generation firewall (NGFW) that will satisfy business needs today and into the future.

Security Components

Here are some tips about what to look for in a next-generation firewall (NGFW) that will satisfy business needs today and into the future.

Application Awareness:

Next Generation Firewall must be able to identify, allow, block or limit applications regardless of port, protocol etc. Traditional port-based firewalls only provide you with limited control and visibility of the applications and end-users accessing your network.

Obviously, you don’t want everyone accessing applications like YouTube or Facebook, however, what about your marketing team, or teachers that are streaming a video for a specific lesson? With the right firewall in place, you can apply policies to certain end-users, allowing access to those with jobs pertinent to the applications being used. Different end-users can have different polices applied that prohibit them from accessing certain applications.

Approachability:

Many firewall models deliver tight security and offer GUI-friendly administration. GUIs help prevent installation mistakes, make it easier to diagnose and correct failures, make it easier to train staff and implement changes, upgrades, and replacement. The easier a platform is to administer, the easier it will be to troubleshooting and maintaining the platform.

Deep packet inspection (DPI):  

This capability ensures the various pieces of each packet are thoroughly examined to identify malformed packets, errors, known attacks and any other anomalies. DPI can rapidly identify and then block Trojans, viruses, spam, intrusion attempts and any other violations of normal protocol communications.

VPN support:

A good firewall also establishes and monitors secure channels, enabling remote connectivity.  In order to secure encrypted traffic the Next generation Firewall supports all inbound and outbound SSL decryption capabilities. Look for a firewall that supports both SSL- and IPSec- protected VPN connections from similar devices (for point-to-point or site-to-site VPNs), as well as other secure connections.

Capacity & Throughput:

Ensure that the device has the appropriate number of Ethernet ports and the appropriate speeds (10Mbps/100Mbps and/or 1000Mbps, if necessary).  Ensure that the firewall you select and/or maintain has the CPU capacity necessary to perform packet inspection, gateway security services, and routing functions.

Failover:

Some organizations require WAN failover, or redundant Internet connections with automatic fault detection and correction. Many firewall models don’t have support for automatic failover. If that feature is critical to your organization, confirm that the model you select includes seamless failover; don’t assume high-end firewalls include such functionality by default.

Premium Class Market Players

Layots is partnered with world class OEMs like Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos, Sonic wall, Check Point & Barracuda which is compatible with different operating system and prevents any kind of opportunistic attacks 

Cisco: A proven stateful inspection firewall with next-generation firewall capabilities and network-based security controls for end-to-end network intelligence and streamlined security operations.

Juniper: Juniper Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) Services provide policy-based awareness and control over applications, users, and content to stop advanced cyberthreats—all in a single device. Security management and visibility for centralized, automated policy control across physical and virtual SRX Series firewalls.

Palo Alto Networks: Power, intelligence, simplicity and versatility for enterprise and service provider deployments & A scalable modular design that enables increased performance as enterprise needs grow.

Fortinet: Fortinet’s network security solutions provide powerful protection across the entire attack surface. With Fortinet’s integrated SD-WAN and Next Generation Firewall, your organization has access to an Intrusion Prevention System, VPN, Secure Web Gateway, and more.

Sophos: Sophos firewall has got an interactive GUI. Reporting platform is very good and it has got easy use SSL VPN for the organization. With Sophos Firewall you can track down each and every network traffic on reporting screen. Sophos Firewall has got a good ransomware protection feature.

Sonicwall: SonicWall firewall  is rated a good value too. The company offers its Super Massive line for the largest networks; NSA for mid range companies; and TZ series firewalls for small companies.

Understanding how a NGFW performs requires more than looking at a vendor’s specification or running a bit of traffic through it. Most firewalls will perform well when traffic loads are light. It’s important to see how a firewall responds at scale, particularly when encryption is turned on. Roughly 80% of traffic is encrypted today, and the ability to maintain performance levels with high volumes of encrypted traffic is critical.

We @layots are ready to help your organization by pitching the selection of right network firewall device which best matches your requirements.