Running a business today means keeping your company data safe from cyber-attacks. Managed firewalls are powerful tools that create a barrier against hackers, malware, and data thieves. Shockingly, over 60% of companies have experienced a cyber-attack. Setting up and managing business firewalls requires specialized IT skills that most companies need to gain.
Instead of trying to handle firewall security in-house, smart businesses turn to managed firewall services. Expert-managed firewall services monitor your systems 24/7 and customize firewall rules to match your company’s unique security needs, all while you focus on core business tasks.
In this article, we will explain what managed firewalls are all about and why your business needs one. Read on to learn why managed firewalls are becoming so popular.
What Is Managed Firewall ?
A managed firewall is a service where a team of IT security experts configures, monitors, and manages your firewall for you. Over 60% of companies need more staff and expertise to handle firewall security in-house properly. Managed firewall providers have the specialized skills to set up firewall policies, customize firewall rules that match your business needs, and optimize protections leveraging defined security metrics.
They continuously monitor network activity to rapidly spot threats, investigate suspicious access attempts, apply security updates, and tune the firewall to optimize protection based on key security metrics and best practices.
What Are Managed Firewall Services
According to statistics, 93% of businesses experienced network perimeter breaches in the past year because of low firewall maintenance. Managed firewall service providers like Certified nerds can prevent many of these cyber-attacks. Some of the services they offer are:
Firewall Expertise
Outsourced Managed firewall services provide complete firewall management and security handled by dedicated IT security specialists. Most businesses need more staff with advanced firewall skills and experience.
Continuous Security Monitoring
Managed firewall providers monitor network activity 24/7 from state-of-the-art security operations centers, rapidly detecting threats targeting business infrastructure.
Managed firewall services customize firewall configurations, policies and rules based on each client’s unique infrastructure vulnerabilities, data assets, and cyber risk levels.
Maintenance
Included Managed services handle all firewall upkeep like regular patching, updates, compliance audits, performance reviews and security policy tuning tailored for shifting threats.
Affordable Enterprise-level Security
For a simple monthly subscription rather than large capital investments into in-house security staff, managed firewalls deliver reliable, enterprise-grade network perimeter protection fine-tuned to stop attacks.
Types Of Managed Firewalls
Understanding the different types of firewalls is crucial for organizations to manage their security effectively. While all firewalls share the common goal of safeguarding networks and infrastructure from harmful external traffic, their approaches differ significantly.
NGFWs go beyond traditional firewalls with expanded security scanning, real-time threat analytics, and intelligence sharing to provide the highest level of protection for today’s complex networks. It is the most advanced type of traditional firewall.
Web Application Firewalls (WAFS)
WAFs safeguard public-facing web applications and sites from injection attacks, cross-site scripting and other threats targeting internet traffic flows.
Cloud firewalls are network security devices deployed in public/private cloud infrastructures to segment cloud assets, monitor lateral traffic between workloads, enforce security policies, and log flows.
Internal Firewalls
Internal firewalls placed between departments isolate sensitive systems like finance or HR databases to limit unauthorized internal access in large organizations.
How Does A Firewall Work?
A firewall acts as a protective shield between your company network and external threats like hackers, malware and data thieves. Over 70% of malicious cyber-attacks originate from outside a company’s network perimeter. Firewalls use predefined security rules to block suspicious traffic and allow legitimate network flows automatically. Any connection attempt must pass the firewall’s advanced threat scanning, security metrics checks, and policy checks first before reaching the company infrastructure. Firewalls track detailed traffic logs, too, for analyzing patterns.
With millions of attacks like network probes, botnet communications and ransomware occurring globally every week, properly configured firewalls serve as the frontline defense to filter out dangerous traffic headed for key business systems, keeping valuable company data safe.
Why Are Firewalls Important?
Firewalls add a critical layer of protection between your business networks and the constant cyber security threats that exist online. Shockingly, a business falls victim to a ransomware attack every 14 seconds. Without a properly configured firewall, your company data and systems are exposed to attacks like data breaches, malware infections and ransomware.
Firewalls block suspicious access attempts, filter out potentially dangerous communications and traffic patterns, and prevent outsiders from obtaining unauthorized entry into your networks. They provide access control, key monitoring capabilities, and the first line of defense against the nonstop efforts of hackers and cyber criminals looking to steal valuable company information.
Key Benefits Of Taking Managed Firewall Services
Getting specialized security experts to manage your firewall is much better than handling it internally. The main advantages are:
Advanced Protection
Managed firewall services leverage state-of-the-art firewall platforms fine-tuned to mitigate the latest intrusion techniques hackers employ in break-in attempts.
Lower Costs
Compared to hiring expert firewall/security staff, managed firewalls deliver superior network perimeter security more affordably via monthly subscriptions.
Time-Saving
Keeping firewall firmware updated and modifying firewall rules or policies requires ample time, which managed services provide.
Customization
Managed firewall services tailor configurations and policies specific to vulnerabilities in your infrastructure assets and data environments.
Peace Of Mind
With an expert team watching firewalls round the clock, managed firewall users gain confidence their business systems are securely protected 24/7.
Why Your Company Needs A Managed Firewall Service Provider?
Every 39 seconds, a business falls victim to a malicious cyber-attack. Incidents like data breaches, ransomware infections and stolen finances resulting from firewall misconfigurations or a lack of specialized expertise cost companies dearly. Managing firewall security protection against external threats in today’s threat environment demands highly skilled, experienced firewall specialists focused solely on implementing, monitoring and updating robust defenses. Yet 63% of organizations need more adequate internal cyber security skills.
By partnering with managed firewall services and leasing dedicated technical teams to tailor, improve and vigilantly monitor firewall protections, companies can rest assured that security experts have their infrastructure lockdown 24/7. Outsourcing firewall security management to specialized providers is a smart, cost-effective choice. Managed firewall services utilize defined security metrics to optimize firewall configurations and policies.
Conclusion
As cyberattacks increase in frequency and complexity, companies require specialized security expertise to stay protected. Facing threats from all sides, most organizations struggle to staff firewall management using internal resources alone adequately. By implementing managed firewalls, companies gain dedicated firewall professionals custom-fitting robust defenses to stop modern attacks. It has become a time-consuming need to take managed firewall service providers.
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