Next-generation firewall for maximum network protection

Creating barriers or creating a wall is one of the best ways to keep intruders and strangers at bay.

The same concept works in the online realm. Technology has given us a way to filter network traffic through several layers that are meant to keep hackers and viruses at bay. These cyberattacks are common across the application, transport, and network, as well as at the data link level. But the introduction of the next generation firewall creates more efficient ways

Traditional Firewall Security vs. New Generation Firewalls

The old or traditional firewall used to refine traffic based on ports and protocols. For example, block or allow all port 80 for HTTP traffic or port 443 for HTTPS traffic. This can be said as an “all or nothing” approach.

However, newer firewall technology handles or filters traffic based on the applications or types of traffic that traverse these ports. For example, port 80 can be opened only for selected HTTP traffic, or for those with specific applications, sites, or services that you want to allow. This can be thought of as a combination of firewall and Quality of Service (QoS) functionalities in a single solution.

Application-aware firewalls are already considered next-generation firewalls, or NGFWs, but they originally came from a Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution. However, the UTM refers to products that face a deficiency in actual application knowledge and are targeted at the SMB market. Threat management solutions are equipped to offer additional functionalities (antivirus, antispam or intrusion prevention systems (IPS)) on top of traditional firewalls that provide excellent cyber security.

Both aspects, security, and bandwidth control are possible due to the fine tuning of the traffic function provided by NGFWs. They are designed to be smarter as they inspect deeply and have great potential to capture more malicious activity. Another reason to prefer them over a traditional firewall is their functionality as content filters that provide QoS features. This means that higher priority applications receive higher priority bandwidth. The need for newer firewall security is not just limited to enhanced cyber security, but NGFWs are desired due to enhanced cloud services and outsourced software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers.

Common characteristics of NGFWs:

Standard Firewall Features: Port/protocol inspection, Network Address Translation (NAT), and VPN are some of the common firewall features.

Application identification and filtering: This is the main feature that makes it easy to identify and filter traffic associated with specific applications. Prevents malicious apps and activities from using non-standard ports to bypass the firewall.

SSL and SSH inspection: Additional security against malicious applications through the use of encryption.

Intrusion prevention: Smarter and deeper traffic monitoring makes next-generation firewalls easier to implement for intrusion detection and prevention.

Directory Integration: Most NGFWs incorporate directory support, which makes administration of authorized applications based on users and user groups.

Malware filtering: NGFWs offer reputation-based filtering to ban apps that have a bad reputation.