Buyer's Guide | Next Generation Firewall | Check Point Software

Buyer's Guide | Next Generation Firewall

Table of Contents

The Cyber Security Landscape Is Shifting

The world as we know it has changed, and so has business. Companies around the globe are looking for ways to connect reliably, scale rapidly, and protect a mobile workforce. These changes are causing more organizations to shift toward cloud-hybrid environments, adding complexities to existing cyber security measures.

A 2023 IDC report confirmed that as data centers and enterprises are adapting a cloud-hybrid model, security remains a concern, with 56% of IaaS environments reporting one or more major breach in the last two years. This is tied to the overall rise in cyber attacks, as indicated by Check Point’s 2023 Cyber Security Report, which noted a surge in several industries, including a staggering 74% increase in attacks in the healthcare industry.

In addition to specific infrastructure breaches, the increased fragmentation of IT environments poses logistical and management challenges for security teams. To future-proof security, organizations need solutions that reduce administrative overhead, integrate with cloud and on-prem infrastructure, and enforce granular policies, all while delivering consistent security and performance across their networks.

Firewall Defined

A Firewall is a network security device that monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic. A Firewall enforces an organization’s security policy by filtering network traffic. At its most basic level, a Firewall is essentially the boundary or barrier between two networks to identify threats in incoming traffic and blocks specific traffic, once flagged by a defined set of security rules, while allowing non-threatening traffic through.

Firewalls have existed since the late 80s and started as “packet filters,” which were set up to examine packets transferred between computers. They’ve come a long way since then, but the basic principle behind why they’re so important remains: It allows an organization to enforce security policies at the network level, protecting all the devices behind the firewall without having to implement these policies on every device.

What Do They Do?

A Firewall is a necessary part of any security architecture and takes the guesswork out of host-level protections and entrusts them to your network security device. In a properly segmented network, firewalls enforce zero trust least privileged access for IoT devices, users, groups, applications, and systems. This includes macro segmentation boundary controls for north/south traffic entering and exiting the protected segment and micro segmentation to inspect east/west traffic between virtual machines in private, public, and hybrid cloud environments, as well as 'trusted' traffic within a data center. Firewalls are also multi-purpose network devices, using dynamic routing protocols to route traffic and serving as virtual private network (VPN) termination points for site-to-site and client-to-site infrastructure.

The main job of firewalls is threat prevention. This is accomplished through micro-segmentation that enforces zero trust, lease privilege access for devices (including IoT), users, groups, applications, and systems. Traffic is thus inspected across environments, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid.

Types of Firewalls

Network Segmentation

Network segmentation defines boundaries between network segments where assets within the group have a common function, risk, or role within an organization.

Access Control

Access control defines the people or groups and the devices that have access to network applications and systems, thereby denying unsanctioned access, and maybe threats.

Remote Access VPN

Firewalls serve as virtual private network (VPN) termination points for site-to-site and client-to-site infrastructure.

Zero Trust Networks

The zero trust security model states that a user should only have the access and permissions that they require to fulfill their role.

Email Security

Email security refers to any processes, products, and services designed to protect email accounts and content from external threats.

Web Security

Web security requires constantly updating web protocol inspection capabilities, accurately categorizing millions of websites.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data loss prevention (DLP) combines technology and best practices to prevent the exposure of sensitive information.

Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)

IPS technologies detect or prevent network security attacks such as brute force attacks, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and exploits of known vulnerabilities.

Sandboxing

Sandboxing runs code or opens files in a safe, isolated environment on a host machine that mimics end-user operating environments.

Types of Firewall Deployments

Firewalls have evolved and are now deployed in a variety of form factors.

Resilient, Scalable Network Security

Hyperscale is the ability of an architecture to scale appropriately.

Cloud Network Security

Protecting the modern data center requires greater flexibility and innovation to keep pace with the migration of application workloads to the cloud.

Latency Sensitive, High Throughput Applications

Data center, e-commerce, and service provider environments require securing trusted traffic at ultra-low latency.

Hybrid Mesh Firewall

A hybrid mesh firewall platform is deployed across hardware and virtual appliances with a unified management plane.

Conclusion

Selecting next-gen or enterprise firewalls requires consideration of scaling operations. By combining people, policies, and procedures, organizations can take a step towards protecting their sensitive assets and fulfilling compliance requirements.

Appendix: Why Do You Need Firewalls?

Prevention is key. Every network needs malware defense, which involves many layers of safeguards. Firewall can protect against various types of malware.