White Papers: firewall

Walls have served multiple purposes throughout history. The Great Wall of China defended against invaders, while the Berlin Wall kept citizens from freely traveling beyond the control of their rulers. Network security relies on similar premises. For years network security professionals touted “perimeter security” as the primary solution to keep the bad guys out and the good guys in. However, just as guns and air attacks overcame protective walls, changes in malware attacks have rendered network firewalls and perimeter-centric security an ineffective defense.

The firewall market has traditionally been a staple, yet, mature market within the security space with little innovation being introduced. However, with the rapid change in the technology and threat landscape, a newer breed of of innovation focussing on applications visibility and control, termed Next Generation Firewalls has surfaced. This paper examines how Next Generation Firewalls can help organisations identify and block threat, while at the same time enforcing policies at an application level and ultimately helping organisations reduce the number of security devices and thus, saving costs.

Information ranging from trade secrets to privacy related information has become the target of sophisticated attacks from both sides of the firewall. Protecting data now requires a strategy that enables both preventive and detective controls. Read on.