Next-Generation Firewall Review: Enhancing Network Security.

Next-generation firewalls (NGFW) offer advanced protections such as deep packet inspection, IPS, and malware detection, surpassing traditional firewalls. Explore how these functionalities can secure your network and alleviate common cybersecurity concerns faced by IT leaders and engineers.

A next-generation firewall review involves evaluating the capabilities and performance of an NGFW compared to traditional firewalls. Next-generation firewalls integrate advanced security features such as IPS, malware protection, and deep packet inspection, enhancing network security by providing comprehensive threat intelligence and application control.

Businesses can identify the best security solutions tailored to their needs, ensuring robust protection against zero-day vulnerabilities, ransomware, and advanced threats. Companies like Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet also highlight the evolution and advantages of Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) emphasizing their role in modern cybersecurity strategies.

Importance of Next-Generation Firewalls

A next-generation firewall review means that someone is comparing an NGFW’s features and capabilities as well as its performance with traditional firewalls.

 NGFWs come equipped with all the features of a traditional firewall plus advanced security features such as intrusion protection system (IPS), malware protection, deep packet inspection, etc. and they can keep the network secure by providing better protection against advanced threats and malicious attacks using advanced threat intelligence and application control.

Conducting a next-generation firewall review allows enterprises to find the best kind of security solutions that fit their needs, ensuring stringent protection from zero-day vulnerabilities, ransomware, and other advanced threats. 

Additionally, enterprise firewall throughput analysis helps companies understand the limitations of their resources, optimize bandwidth, and enhance network performance and security to support their businesses. This process is crucial for maintaining high availability and implementing zero trust principles across both endpoint devices and the broader network, as highlighted in Tufin’s understanding firewall throughput guide.

Companies like Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet also write about the evolution and advantages of next-generation firewalls and its place in modern cybersecurity strategies.

For further insights, consider exploring the understanding firewall throughput and the evolution of next-generation firewalls.

Advanced Security Features and Real-World Applications

NGFWs offer advanced security features that go beyond traditional firewalls. These include deep packet inspection, application control, and integrated intrusion prevention systems (IPS). Such functionalities enable NGFWs to identify and mitigate threats in real-time, providing robust protection for network security.

In real-world applications, NGFWs like Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks have demonstrated their effectiveness in preventing sophisticated cyber threats. For example, a Tufin customer, a leading financial institution, successfully utilized the Tufin Orchestration Suite to enhance their security policy management.

This allowed them to streamline their network firewall change processes, significantly reducing misconfigurations and improving compliance across edge environments, data centers, and network segmentation.

Evaluating NGFWs also involves considering their ability to address specific security challenges. For instance, NGFWs can effectively manage network traffic and prevent unauthorized access through features like SSL decryption and threat intelligence. These capabilities are critical in protecting sensitive data within cloud-based and on-premises environments. 

For further insights, visit addressing firewall challenges in today’s cyber landscape and security policy orchestration in a NGFW deployment.

Understanding the evolution of NGFWs and their advanced features is crucial for IT leaders and engineers. By leveraging advanced threat prevention, URL filtering, and application layer controls, NGFWs can offer comprehensive security solutions that traditional firewalls lack. 

For a deeper dive, explore the introduction to next-generation firewalls NGFW.

FAQs

How Does a NGFW Differ From a Traditional Firewall?

A NGFW offers more advanced security features compared to a traditional firewall, including unified threat management, IPS, deep packet inspection, stateful inspection, web filtering, and application-level authentication. NGFWs are designed to handle modern threats, providing comprehensive protection for your network, whether deployed on-premises or in cloud environments like AWS. These features are crucial for service providers and end-users alike, offering robust defenses against DNS-based attacks and other sophisticated threats.

Why is Policy Management Important in a NGFW Review?

Policy management is crucial in a next generation firewall review because it ensures that security policies are consistently applied across your network, whether cloud-based or on-premises. Effective policy management helps prevent misconfigurations and enhances overall network security.

What Should I Look for in a NGFW Review?

When conducting a next-generation firewall review, it’s important to evaluate advanced security features such as deep packet inspection, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and application control. Additionally, consider the firewall’s ability to integrate with your existing network infrastructure and its policy management capabilities.

Cybersecurity Challenges

NGFWs have become essential for network security in complex cybersecurity environments. Unlike traditional firewalls, NGFWs provide new generation protection, including deep packet inspection, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and threat intelligence that can protect your network from modern-day threats like ransomware, zero-day, and advanced persistent threats (APT).

For instance, Tufin Orchestration Suite facilitates the management of security policies and enforces compliance with regulatory standards and best practices across large, complex networks. This stateful firewall solution offers robust threat protection by automating policy changes and providing a real-time view of network connections, potential security gaps, and cloud services.

Tufin Orchestration Suite has already been trialed with success in the financial services sector, shaving 80% off the time required to manage firewall policies for a large, complex financial institution. This result, as documented in a case study, was achieved while managing a hybrid environment that included Cisco Firewalls, AWS cloud instances, next-gen firewalls, and SD-WAN deployments. This helps the organization to cope with addressing firewall challenges in today’s cyber landscape.

Interested to hear more how Tufin is able to manage your NGFWs as part of a larger hybrid-network infrastructure? Click here for a free demo!