The relentless onslaught of hackers and scammers, growing in both scale and nature, forces organizations to spend millions on protecting their networks. The industry is also witnessing significant disruptions—hybrid IT, increasing network edges, segmented networks, and hyperscale—driving the adoption of the latest security solutions to thwart risks before it’s too late. Amidst unmanaged endpoints, complex cloud-based infrastructure and evolving threat vectors, the need for a Zero Trust approach has become more apparent than ever. However, the lack of convergence remains a key challenge in achieving Zero Trust.
Though firewalls have always been a critical component of enterprise cybersecurity measures, the traditional firewalls were not designed to support the current security requirements or offer minute visibility and threat protection to today’s cloud-first businesses. Next-generation Firewall combines the key features of a traditional firewall with a host of new-age features to help modern enterprises stay resilient and control their networks. From precise control, deep-packet inspection, and application awareness to antivirus and spam filtering, NGFWs offer the much-required protection from internal and external threats.
Velcode Solutions offer fully managed firewall services to small and medium sized businesses. An enterprise firewall provides a first line of protection against internal and external network-based cyber security threats. In other words, it stops malicious traffic in its track.
Both traditional types of firewalls and NGFW firewalls validate connections between a network, the internet, and firewall and that they are secure. Traffic is allowed or blocked based on administrator-defined rules using a mix of static and dynamic packet filtering and virtual private network support. In addition, both should be able to read and translate network and port addresses to map IP addresses. However, as the name “next-generation” implies, an NGFW is more advanced.
NGFW APPLICATION-LEVEL INSPECTION
Computer software packages or “applications” are widely used within and without a company by end-users or other applications for businesses to perform specific functions. An application can be self-contained or a group of programs. This is why the application-level inspection capability of an NGFW is crucial in today’s world. Like there are good emails and bad emails, there are good applications and bad applications. Using signature matching and analytics, a team managing an NGFW can filter packets based on applications and have better control and visibility. Using an allow list or internet protocols that are signature-based, safe applications can be distinguished from threatening or unwanted applications. Once identified, secure site license (SSL) decryption can be used, and a safe path for future application updates can be used.
NGFW INTRUSION INSPECTION
NGFWs can block malware or malicious software ‘intrusions’ from entering a network. This is immensely beneficial when threats—or even what is known as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)—to networks and even personal devices are growing and changing every day. But unfortunately, a traditional firewall cannot block malware. Further, considering the work of antiviruses, firewalls, and other security applications can be rolled into one solution, a managed NGFW is a low-cost, basic security investment.
NGFW THREAT INTELLIGENCE
Is it possible to prepare for an attack if you do not know it is coming or what it is? It is exceedingly complex, and those who create attacks to steal information or paralyze a company from operating realize it. However, it is possible to conduct trend analysis on data collected and processed to understand potential threats. Threat intelligence gathered by a managed team and the NGFW tools enable a business to make faster, data-driven security decisions. Any business should want evidence-based information, and a managed NGFW looks at motives, targets, and attack behaviours to give context, indicators, implications, and action-oriented “intelligent” advice towards threats to a business.
As a trusted Managed Security Service provider (MSSP) we offer next generation firewall services including:
Leading NGFW companies include Cisco, Check Point, Juniper, FortiGate, Sophos, and SonicWall. We partner with these companies and more to provide your enterprise with the right level of security at the right price point. We also collaborate closely with a representative of your company, such as an Audit Officer, to ensure compliance standards are met.
At Velcode Solutions, we manage your next-generation firewall with a complete turnkey solution. In addition to handling access control to your IT ecosystem, subverting modern threats such as application and application program threats, blocking malicious malware attacks, and compiling intelligence, our NGFW services include:
- Firewall stateful inspection
- Integrated intrusion/breach prevention
- Awareness and control over risky applications
- Sourced threat intelligence
- Safe information feeds and upgrades paths
- Knowledge and techniques toward evolving security threats
Many network threats go for days, months, or even years before being detected. With managed NGFW, threats can be detected in seconds, successful breaches detected within hours or minutes, and prioritization and action managed swiftly.
