Next Generation Firewalls - Off and Running

Network World, the leading provider of intelligence, insight, and information for network and IT executives, identified the move to a next-generation firewall as a priority in 2011. The technology is still being covered by the industry news outlet almost two years after its initial publication. The technology's adoption is expected to rise from a mere 1% when the article was first published to 35% by 2014.

It places a high priority on the creation of controls regarding how employees access the Internet, Fortinet España social networking sites and the Web. It can also prevent employees from posting on time-wasting sites such as Facebook.

A next-generation firewall is not port-based, unlike a traditional firewall.

Next-generation firewalls are faster and smarter. It can use technologies such as reputation filtering, and "integrate with Active Directory to manage identity and policy."

·         It allows business owners to "erect and enforce identity-based app usage policies."

·         They can also include VPN capabilities.

·         It can sweep traffic at application layers with the goal of preventing intrusions.

·         It gives users a clear view of their network activity and bandwidth usage. They can then "manage application controls related bandwidth priorities and needs."

Are they as popular as expected?

Network World stated in a follow-up article that the new firewall technology is indeed "off to an excellent start." Network World also stated that Fortinet was one of the three top leaders. Fortinet's FortiGate next generation firewall was able to outperform the other providers in terms of performance, scoring high for its management interface as well as usability.

 

The rule-writing capabilities of the Fortinet Next Generation Firewall set it apart from other firewalls. This allows for reference to IP addresses and geography. FortiGate "has a simple rate-based policy feature that is designed to prevent denial-of service attacks," the comparative study revealed.

How can application controls be integrated into them?

It depends on which vendor you are dealing with, but it can be a major difference between products. Fortinet's solution to this problem is to use a single rule base that applies to all products. Network World found this approach to be "the easiest to use and most intuitive from a security standpoint" as well as "potentially most powerful," because traffic can flow only when all attributes match. It allows you to interleave rules without or with application controls.