Cygnia Next Generation Firewalls

What Are Next Generation Firewalls?

Next Generation firewalls give more granularity to their administrators. The key difference between next generation and traditional firewalls is the ability to control what users can do, this comes in the form of user identity. Once the user can be identified then URL Filtering, Application Control (restricting social media, webmail, instant messenger, etc) and Data Leakage Prevention (DLP), (the capability of sending information out of the gateway, email attachments, FTP, etc) can be granted down to a per user basis giving the organisation more management of users traversing the gateway. Advanced reporting features to capture user based activity and monitor it are also an aspect of next generation firewalls.

The other aspect of Next Generation Firewalls is their ability to deal with threats coming in to the network they offer Intrusion Prevention (IPS) which detects malicious code and passing through the gateway and thwarts it. With all this additional functionality there is an overhead on throughput and to have all the features running. Organisations may find they need significantly more processing power than if they were just running an old fashioned firewall.

Intrusion Prevention	Application Control	User Identity	URL Filtering	Smart Reporting	Data Leakage Prevention

Intrusion Prevention - The main functions of intrusion prevention systems are to identify malicious activity, log information about the activity, attempt to block or stop activity, and report the event.

Application Control - Provides granular control of applications such as Social Media, Webmail, Instant Messenger, etc. E.g. a user may be able to just have read only access to webmail but cannot send or upload attachments, or have access to social media sites but with the chat function and games turned off.

User Identity – Turns IP addresses in to users, allowing administrators to have more granular control when setting up Application Control, URL Filtering and DLP.

URL Filtering - Uses categories of websites to block users from accessing unproductive and inappropriate content. Combined with Application Control administrators can have a lot of control over what they can give users access to on the internet.

Smart Reporting - Allows management to see security events as they happen and reporting on them post event. Multiple reporting streams can capture User, Firewall, IPS, Application and URL data.

DLP - Data Leakage Preventionn provides an additional layer of checking to what is leaving the organisation electronically. Typically covering SMTP, HTTP and FTP protocals DLP can prompt the user to agree that the action taken is the correct one, or silently monitor the situation in the background, reporting on what is being sent.

Cygnia's Next Generation Firewalls Vendors

Cygnia offer solutions from three key vendors and can provide next generation firewalls to suit any organisations needs from small companies to large corporates or government agencies.

	Check Point first pioneered the industry with FireWall-1 and its patented stateful inspection technology. Today, Check Point continues to develop new innovations based on the Software Blade Architecture, providing customers with flexible and simple solutions that can be fully customized to meet the exact security needs of any organisation.
	Juniper Networks, Inc. is the leader in high-performance networking. Juniper offers a high-performance network infrastructure that creates a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network.
	SonicWALL®, Inc. provides intelligent network security and data protection solutions that enable customers and partners - around the world – to dynamically secure, control, and scale their global networks.

Cygnia's UTM Solutions

With organisations looking to save cost and have their infrastructure do more, UTM (Unified Threat Management) Appliances that utilise Next Generation Technology are a good solution to defending the corporate perimeter.

Check Point UTM Solutions

Check Point invented the stateful packet inspection technology that is utilized by virtually all firewalls today. A long-time leader in Gartner’s Enterprise Network Firewalls Magic Quadrant, Check Point is recognized by the leading analyst firm for its strong technology leadership and vision, and has won multiple awards from other analyst firms over the years. With its software blade architecure, the following modules can be enabled User Identity, Application Control, IPS, URL, Smart Reporting and DLP.

Juniper SRX

The Juniper SRX platform allows organisations to utilise the appropriate level of security needed at a particular site instead of deploying a multi-device solution. Includes two antivirus options (on-premise or cloud-based), intrusion prevention system (IPS), antispam, and Web filtering.

Sonicwall NSA

SonicWALL security appliances can be deployed as Unified Threat Management (UTM) firewalls that offer comprehensive security combining gateway content filtering, anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, and application intelligence and control.