Next-Gen Firewalls

Firewalls are software that are set to enable which traffic is allowed in or out of the network. Firewalls are like virtual barriers that are put in place to limit or minimize the damage from external attacks.

Types of firewalls:

There are five major types of firewall which include

1) Packet filtering

2) Circuit-level gateway

3) Stateful inspection

4) Application level gateway

5) Next-gen firewalls

In this paper we will be discussing about the Next-gen firewalls. Next-gen firewalls not only combines packet inspection and stateful inspection but also have some sort of deep packet inspection.

Benefits of Next-gen firewalls:

Multifunctional:

Traditional firewalls provide basic packet filtering, network and port address, stateful inspection and can support virtual private networks but however, are limited to data layer and transport layer. Whereas, next-gen firewalls not only provide these functionalities but also include intrusion detection and intrusion prevention system identify attacks on traffic analysis or anomalous activities. These functions help perform deeper inspection and improve content filtering to the application layer.

Application awareness:

Traditional firewalls block common application ports or services to control application access and monitor the attacks. But as the network connectivity is becoming more complex few of the applications use different ports which makes it difficult to recognize the targeted port.

To resolve this problem next-gen firewall monitor traffic from layer 2 through 7 and are smart enough to know what is being sent and received. If the data sent is within the set parameters it will be allowed or else firewall blocks it.

Streamlined infrastructure

Traditional firewalls need a security appliance for every new threat which could be costly for the organization and will require much more efforts to maintain and updated devices. Because of dynamic IPs it becomes difficult to configure tons of rules that are required to recognize and handle the traffic. These devices also don’t have controls and security to user data and applications.

Whereas, next-gen firewalls provide built-in filters for viruses, spams and deep-packet inspection and provide application control with single device with no extra cost.

Threat protection

In contrast with traditional firewalls, next-gen firewalls have antivirus and malware protection built in within them and they keep on updating the software as new threats or viruses are being discovered.