Next Generation Firewalls
Smart firewalls infused with machine learning to protect your business
Next-generation firewalls are network security devices that provide capabilities beyond stateful, traditional firewalls. Traditional firewalls provide stateful inspection services of traffic, incoming and outgoing. Next-generation firewalls have additional features, such as cloud-delivered threat intelligence, integrated intrusion prevention, and application awareness and control.
The online economy brings great opportunities but also some dangers. Unprotected exposure to the internet leaves your business vulnerable to attacks from malicious users and software pieces designed to steal information and corrupt your systems.
This risk is what makes a next-generation firewall – or NGFW – such a valuable piece of equipment in your organization’s online security toolkit. iPower Technologies provide such solutions to your company, keeping you protected effectively and efficiently and providing all of the peace of mind which comes with this. Get in touch with the team to find out more and to get started, or read on for further information on these smart security structures.
An Advanced Convergence of Security Concepts in your NGFW
A next generation firewall benefits your business in many ways.
Your next-generation firewall technology from iPower brings together three state-of-the-art concepts in the world of cybersecurity. These are:
- Enterprise level firewall functionality
- Advanced intrusion protection system – or IPS
- Application control
By unifying these core concepts, Next Generation Firewalls take significant steps toward eliminating the online threat from malware, ransomware, and other nefarious pieces of programming. An attack from one of these pieces of software is something your business cannot afford, which is why iPower’s Next Generation Firewall NGFW is growing in popularity among clients. Next-generation firewall technology benefits your business in many ways.
The next-generation firewall is not so much a replacement for previous generations as it is an evolution. Next-Generation Firewalls build upon the functionality of traditional firewalls, adding cutting-edge quality of service functionality to an already dynamic mix of security protocols.
The first firewalls were simple barriers, points at which a security division was implemented between your organization’s digital architecture and the online world at large. Next-generation firewall NGFW offerings go a little further than this.
A Next Generation Firewall NGFW is capable of learning about and understanding the traffic which passes across it, ensuring that it is better positioned to block and allow communication as and when required.
In most cases, the online functionality of a business’s web presence – and a user’s interaction with that functionality – is supported by applications. These pieces of digital engineering have been revolutionary in the capability they provide but have also made it difficult for a firewall to do the job of protecting a business’s systems adequately against advanced security threats.
A Next Generation Firewall sidesteps this by understanding the diverse web traffic that these applications are responsible for and making quick, reliable decisions on the nature of this traffic that address advanced persistent threats. Get in touch today to learn more about next-generation firewalls or to get started with an NGFW for your business.
Next-Generation Firewall Compared to Traditional Firewall
Traditional firewall systems operate on layers of OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) models and monitor and manage applications and network traffic to ensure complete data transfer. This blocks or allows traffic using protocols and leverages or port stateful inspection to make decisions based on defined security standards. Backhauling traffic to a next-generation firewall makes sense when applications reside in the data center.
When ransomware emerged, stateless security walls could be omitted from a network daily. It was evident that intelligent security was needed. Threat intelligence sources needed to include upgraded paths that include threat information feed techniques that address evolving security threats.
A traditional firewall and an NGFW firewall aim to protect users’ data assets and networks. They are similar in having state packet filtering that blocks packets at the interface point of network traffic.
Both can provide port and network address translation and stateful inspection of packets. You can set up VPN connections. Among the most critical differences between next-generation and traditional firewalls is NGFWs have deep packet inspection capable of going beyond what traditional firewalls can accomplish.
NGFWs block modern security threats like application layers and malware. Next-generation firewalls include more OSI model layers that improve network traffic dependent on the contents of a packet. They perform deep packet inspection with a more thorough inspection style that checks packet payloads and matches signatures for harmful activities.
Threat intelligence provides information about possible attacks. Current threat intelligence security blocks these attacks. New Generation Firewalls receive information from outside a system and act accordingly. Detecting IPS signatures helps protect against threats using malware signature technology.
Threat analysis offers IP reputation data. Generally, IP reputations identify where bots most frequently attack IP addresses. IP-reputation threat feeds enable NGFWs to block access from IP addresses known to be bad. Because they are integrated with threat intelligence services, NGFWs are better equipped for addressing advanced persistent threats.
NGFWs block or allow packets depending on the application for which they are targeted. The decision is made through application layer analysis. Traditional firewalls cannot block dangerous apps. A user who cannot access firewall data cannot cause an intrusion.
Intrusion prevention analyzes traffic coming into a website and detects potential and known threats, and blocks them. The feature is an IPS (Intrusion Prevention System). A variety of techniques are used to detect threats.
iPower has several available models that meet clients’ needs ranging from basic to high-end appliances. We integrate with the business environment and provide connectivity and scalable data storage.
Next-Generation Firewalls
The top priority of a firewall is to prevent breaches and keep an organization safe. Preventative measures will never be 100% effective. A firewall should deliver advanced security and breach prevention capabilities that detect malicious content evasion from front-line defenses. It should have
- The capability to prevent attacks before they intrude
- A built-in next-generation IPS that will spot threats and stops them quickly
- URL filter packets that enforce policies on millions of URLs
- Built-in advanced malware protection and sandboxing that analyzes file behavior constantly to detect and eliminate threats quickly
- A threat intelligence organization that provides the latest firewall intelligence that stops emerging threats
- Most NGFWs integrate a minimum of three basic functions= application control, an IPS, and enterprise firewall capabilities.