Critical Capabilities for Firewalls

A Quick Primer on Network Firewalls

Firewalls act as a barrier between a trusted internal network and the public internet. Positioned in front of an enterprise’s own devices and technology users, it filters incoming packets and identifies signs of malicious requests. The decision of whether to allow, deny, or further scrutinize a connection is essentially programmed in via the firewall policies.

These policies are detailed guidelines that specify the conditions of safe traffic, relying on factors, such as:

• Source and destination IP addresses
• Ports
• Protocols
• Application types

Whenever a fresh data packet triggers a rule, the firewall drops that connection, alerts an analyst, and creates a log file. This ability to monitor and control what traffic is reaching a network is fundamental to basic network security

The Critical Capabilities of a Modern Network Firewall

According to Forrester

Because firewalls are a mature security tool, there are many options on the market.

Choosing the best for your enterprise demands a thorough understanding of your own use-case; knowing what’s out there can help bring your expectations in line with the market. The 2024 Forrester Wave report highlights three key firewall features.

Streamlined Policy Management

Firewalls are nothing without their underlying policies. However, keeping a firewall tool up to date can represent a significant time sink. Choosing a firewall that offers simplified and unified policy management across firewalls and other network security controls saves dozens of hours in manual updates each month.

Plus, a centralized control plane provides a strong foundation for automated and orchestrated policy updates. For example, next-gen firewalls can:

• Automatically implement relevant rules in response to newly published vulnerabilities
• Eliminate protection gaps before a formal patch is available
• Free up administrative teams to focus on higher-priority security tasks

Optimized Microsegmentation

Advanced firewalls are now able to support granular microsegmentation.

By grouping assets according to their specific roles, it becomes possible to tighten the security rules around each segment. The Forrester report notes that for companies interested in microsegmentation, it’s best implemented at the firewall level.

• Groups should be customizable via the firewall dashboard
• Policies should be applied using tags that link to those groups

All of this ensures that microsegmentation remains achievable and doesn’t become an endless chore for the admin team.

AI and ML Integration

Firewalls are also becoming better at countering today’s threats thanks to a suite of advanced technologies like AI and machine learning (ML).

This can be applied in multiple ways:

• Some AI algorithms collate and interpret network data to assess Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Others automatically assess and block requests from malicious IPs and network domains

Secondo Gartner

Forrester isn’t the only source of vital firewall capability data.

Gartner is another one, and their Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls report details a few extra features that can help an organization spot a future-proof offering.

Deep Integration

While firewall vendors have been busy expanding the products they offer, companies have consistently struggled with the administrative demands of these extra products.

This has exacerbated the administrative challenge traditional firewalls can incur.

Gartner explicitly mentions that a single unified platform consistently outperforms setups that rely on multiple disparate tools. They also go one step further, noting that even complementary products may require:

• Multiple management consoles
• Custom, expensive workflows
• Analyst time diverted to tool juggling instead of threat response

The answer is a firewall with unified, wider security tooling.

The specifics will depend on what other network security tools your organization uses – but next-gen firewall providers can offer:

• Prevenzione dalle intrusioni
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
• VPN capabilities

…all of this within a single foundational tool. These features should be managed through a centralized management dashboard.

Scalabilità

Scalability is another mission-critical factor to keep in mind when selecting an enterprise or service provider-grade firewall. Take, for instance, a firewall equipped with extensive in-line threat management features, such as:

• Antivirus
• URL Filtering
• VPN
• Intrusion prevention

These features become ineffective if they introduce significant latency to revenue-critical applications.

Modern firewalls maintain performance at scale through cloud virtualization. By abstracting a firewall’s processing power away from a physical device, they draw on greater reserves than traditional, hardware-bound firewalls.

This approach also offers key benefits:

• Greater processing efficiency
• Support for firewall policy analysis at more local Points of Presence (POPs)
• Reduced latency across global operations
• Drastically improved throughput compared to legacy devices