Defending Against Inbound Threats
While Fortinet Network Firewall may be install in a variety of locations within a company’s network, the network perimeter is the most typical. The barrier between the secured internal network and the untrusted public Internet is defined and enforced by deploying a firewall at the network perimeter.
The fact that all network traffic entering and exiting the business network flows via a single point of connection between it and the public Internet may also be used by a network firewall positioned at the network perimeter. By installing a firewall in this position, it will be able to get total insight into data flows beyond the network’s perimeter.
A perimeter-based firewall also provides proactive cyber-threat defence. Threat prevention features in a next-generation firewall can detect and stop attempted assaults before they reach the corporate network. This greatly reduces the amount of harm that these assaults may inflict to the company, as well as the level of cyber risk that the firm and its personnel face.
Providing a Multi-Pronged Approach to Defense
Firewalls may also offer protection in depth for attacks that manage to penetrate the network border. An enterprise may get better insight into internal traffic and make it more difficult for an attacker or hostile insider to move laterally inside the network by deploying network firewalls to segregate the network.
A next-generation firewall placed within the business network benefits from application management and identity-based inspection in addition to the fundamental threat prevention features. Application control allows a firewall to determine which application is responsible for a particular stream of network traffic. This enables the firewall to apply application-specific security regulations, lowering the risk of insecure apps and allowing the company to ban unauthorised applications from accessing their network.
Identity-based inspection adds to the context of a network flow’s examination. A firewall may impose access rules based on employee job roles and issued permissions by identifying the user doing a certain activity. Because privileged accounts are used in 74% of data breaches, visibility and monitoring of the activities taken by these accounts is critical.
Meeting Specific Security Requirements
Next-generation firewalls are also beneficial to network security since they may be used to secure an organization’s whole network infrastructure. Traditional user workstations and servers, mobile devices, cloud-based infrastructure, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices are all common endpoints in business networks as they develop and adapt. Securing a developing, diversified network may soon become very difficult.
Because it acts at the network level rather than the endpoint, a firewall may secure all of an organization’s devices. Unified Security Management (USM), which unifies all of an organization’s security data into a single console, should also be included in a next-generation firewall. This is critical since many firms are struggling to recruit enough expertise to staff their security teams due to the current cybersecurity skills shortage.
A next-generation firewall may be implemented as a cloud-based virtual appliance in addition to offering cloud support (the ability to quickly protect multi-cloud hybrid cloud setups). This allows a company to quickly install security where it’s required while also taking advantage of cloud-based infrastructure’s scalability. Cloud firewalls may quickly expand to match the security demands of an organization’s growing network, unlike hardware-based security appliances, which need new hardware expenditures to scale.
Providing customised security
Security standards vary depending on the size of the company. Traditional firewalls may have been “one size fits all” in the past, but current firewalls may be tailored to match a company’s unique security requirements.
Industrial facilities and critical infrastructure, for example, face various dangers and operate in different contexts than standard IT networks. Selecting an industrial firewall capable of working in hostile settings guarantees that the company’s cybersecurity is not compromised.
Creating a Reliable First Line of Defense
Choosing a firewall may be challenging due to the many alternatives available and the fact that not all firewalls are made equal. Small gateways to hyperscale network security solutions are all covered by firewalls. Traditional firewalls and next-generation firewalls vary in a number of ways, and knowing these distinctions and why they matter is a key part of the buying process.
A next-generation firewall must have a few fundamental characteristics to fully secure your network against contemporary cyber threats. Check out our article to discover more about these important characteristics and how to choose a firewall that is ideal for your business and delivers the essential degree of network security. You can also request a demo or contact us to learn more about how a Check Point firewall can help your company defend against cyber attacks.
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