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Vendor Landscape: Next Generation Firewalls
The perimeter firewall grows up and becomes a Swiss Army Knife of protection capabilities.
Last Revised: November 22, 2012
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Your Challenge
- Every enterprise needs to implement the right security solutions to protect its operations and its data; “Firewalls” are a table-stakes requirement for an enterprise to be secure.
- Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) have replaced Unified Threat Management (UTM) systems as feature portfolios broaden.
- Picking the right solution means appropriate protection at an acceptable cost; picking wrong could mean higher cost, lower security, or both.
Our Advice
Critical Insight- The only traffic that counts anymore is HTTP/S: as all traffic becomes Web traffic, controlling traffic flow by protocol becomes keyed to digging into Port 80 (and 443) traffic.
- Inbound is no longer the only direction that threats flow: as security focus has shifted from infrastructure to data, protection needs to address outbound flow as much as inbound attacks.
- Firewalls can’t protect traffic they can’t see: encrypted traffic obfuscates threats from Firewalls while Wi-Fi networks allow attacks to bypass them entirely; modern solutions must control these traffic types as well.
- Enterprises that plan carefully and select thoughtfully can improve enterprise security while reducing cost and trimming administrative effort with a capable UTM/NGFW; the broader capabilities these tools offer means organizations can get rid of older point solutions that supported the incumbent firewall.
Get to Action
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Understand the NGFW market space
Understand NGFW solutions, their capabilities, and cost.
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Review NGFW solutions
Build a shortlist of best-fit NGFW tools for the enterprise.
Related Solution Sets
Build a Network Security Strategy
Like door locks and deadbolts: the basics of security that can't be ignored.
Vendor Landscape Plus: Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems
Bad guys will get in; make sure they don't get far with an enterprise network alarm.
Vendor Landscape: Endpoint Anti-Malware
Endpoint protection grows up to become a fully-fledged security suite unto itself.
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Solution Road Map
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Build a Network Security StrategyLike door locks and deadbolts: the basics of security that can't be ignored.
-
Vendor Landscape: Next Generation FirewallsThe perimeter firewall grows up and becomes a Swiss Army Knife of protection capabilities.
-
Vendor Landscape: Endpoint Anti-MalwareEndpoint protection grows up to become a fully-fledged security suite unto itself.
-
Vendor Landscape Plus: Intrusion Detection and Prevention SystemsBad guys will get in; make sure they don't get far with an enterprise network alarm.
-
Vendor Landscape: Secure Socket Layer Virtual Private NetworkYour workers are going remote. Is your security?