What is a firewall, and which type should your business use? Find out here.
Without today’s technology, communication would be much harder to achieve. With information technology, people can talk to and see each other from around the world. Moreover, businesses of all sizes can collaborate and provide services in ways never possible only several decades ago. No matter what industry one is in or what size it is, exceptional security is essential to keep out the numerous malware threatening a business’s network, which means keeping up with the latest firewall advancements. Below is a summary regarding the firewall, the next-generation firewall (NGFW,) and the Cloud firewall.
Firewall
The firewall is the most fundamental, traditional form of network security, which many companies still use today. This model acts as a barrier encircling an internal company network, keeping all untrusted users out while still having access to the Internet. One can imagine a firewall as a brick wall encircling a city. The wall still allows workers within the city to access the Internet outside, but no malicious package can enter into it. Because of this setup, some company employees may have to go to their physical office to access the company’s network.
Next-Generation Firewall
A next-generation firewall is a step up from a traditional firewall. NGFW is a broad term, but it generally applies to traditional firewalls with additional features. Some of these features include deep-packet inspections (DPI) to analyze foreign packets more in-depth, intrusion prevention (IPS) to spot and block cyberattacks, and application control for a lower risk of contamination. A cloud-based firewall could have NGFW features, but a traditional firewall may also be a next-generation firewall.
Cloud Firewall
Currently, employees all over the world are looking for flexibility in their work locations even as technology has advanced to provide those needs. A Cloud firewall takes away the stiff boundaries that traditional firewalls used, providing a completely different, virtual format. Instead of keeping the city surrounded by a wall, the many buildings are spread out in different locations across the world. A security center monitors each building, addressing the security needs for each and all of them.
In other words, the company’s Cloud network provides a firewall as a service (FWaaS) for its data and computational power. An FWaaS can be bundled with other security services like zero trust network access (ZTNA) and secure web gateways (SWGs) within secure access service edge (SASE) architecture.
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