Firewalls are now critical in securing, strengthening, and simplifying security operations. Seeing the increasing threat activities, organizations need to meet modern cloud infrastructural solutions that facilitate FWaaS.

Legacy security demands and solutions may not fit the current cyber-security scenario best. Organizations that still use conventional network security access solutions, for instance, Virtual Private Network (VPN) and a firewall that prevents minor threats, may not be adequate to keep enterprise artifacts secure. The inefficacy of conventional networks is the root cause of massive threat attacks that businesses encounter frequently.

For years, legacy firewall frameworks relied solely on port- or protocol-based filtering and were sufficient for most organizations providing security solutions. But because threat actors can now beat this simple firewall structure, security leaders need to look beyond the blocking techniques of legacy firewalls. Consequently, organizations face increased operational costs and decreased user experience quality.

As technology evolves, CISOs are responsible for implementing unscalable and robust firewall rules that pre-empt security threats and can troubleshoot network connectivity issues. The latest cloud-based tools have helped organizations implement highly advanced security software to refresh or restructure their security frameworks.

However, as the strength of the firewall increases, its cost also increases. Besides, it may not be the best decision to buy firewall tools in such a dynamic development space, where new devices are coming up every day.

To meet these challenges, increasingly, organizations are opting for the Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) model. Security leaders have already found optimum capabilities to fight every threat with the new generation of firewall setups in the cloud. Managed service providers offer cloud FWaaS, assuring more scalable cloud-based firewall solutions.

The benefits of a cloud-based security system for organizations are growing, and businesses want to include them in their network. What extended security controls do organizations need to know about cloud-based firewalls?

Also Read: Use Web Application Firewall (WAF) to Avoid Alert Fatigue

What’s Changing for firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS)?

What’s behind the change? Cloud-based firewall-as-a-service eliminates the cost and complexity of buying and upgrading firewall applications. It also simplifies security operations with highly preventive measures, thus, keeping security infrastructure up-to-date every time. Cloud-based firewalls are updated automatically without downtime to apply new IPS signatures every time to stay functional during threat attacks.

Most of all, FWaaS is a better solution today that best fits the macro prevention of cyber-threats. A report Firewall-as-a-Service Market Research, 2031, on the global firewall-as-a-service market size predicts that it will reach $15.6 billion by 2031. The growth rate will be 24.6% from 2022 to 2031.

Also, the latest versions of firewall services are better solutions to the cyber-security trends shaping enterprises with their security solutions. And with users working from home or practicing remote business operations, investing in FWaaS makes better sense now by delivering secure access, preventing all internet activities and network usage for users, and other security accesses.

It’s Not Just FWaaS, but Cloud-Based FWaaS Organizations Need

Why do businesses need cloud-based firewalls? This is because cybercrime never sleeps. Today, companies run on data, which is organizations’ most valuable asset, requiring strict security preventive solutions to keep data safe and used under strict security rules and levels. There are more rock-solid reasons that support organizations should invest in cloud infrastructure for creating security measures.

• Identity & Access Management

Cloud-based FWaaS is the new network and data security perimeter for data security. It simplifies and facilitates network management and is built to stop or mitigate unwanted access to private networks.

• Migration Security

A cloud firewall filters traffic from several sources, such as the web, virtual networks, virtual data, and other sources. So when there is a need to migrate data or any other virtual asset of a business, cloud firewalls actively function by keeping the process safe and maintaining protocols required with security systems.

• Scalability

Because cloud deployment is much simpler, cloud firewall service allows organizations to adjust the size and requirements of their security solutions without any upgrades or replacements of devices installed. As the FWaaS bandwidth doubles, firewall applications automatically adjust to maintain uniformity when provided with security functions. For instance, risks like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks can be mitigated without worrying about bandwidth limits.

• Increased Cost-Effectiveness

To increase the scalability of firewalls, cloud-based firewall services have been a boon for organizations. As most businesses run hybrid or are remote, FWaaS helps expand a secure network access environment and increases the operational expenditure of adding more devices for network expansion. This means that cloud-based firewalls boost the factor of cost-effectiveness at scale so that security leaders can invest more in upgrading other business assets efficiently. It also allows them to eliminate redundant tools and services to scale the speed and continuity of the network without any breaches.

• Web Filtering

Web filtering through cloud-based firewall services allows organizations to mitigate the risk of user activity that doesn’t align with their set policies. Many organizations deploy web filtering to monitor user internet traffic and block websites they see threatening organizational security. Security leaders can adopt FWaaS to block threat-filled websites organization-wide or apply several layers of approvals to give access to specified users or departments to detour unprecedented risks for websites.

Cloud web filtering adds high-security filters that allow organizations to enforce web content policies regardless of user locations. This web filtering will enable organizations to access users’ resources while mitigating risk factors.

Also Read: Cloud Security Company Wiz Raises USD 300 Million at a Value of USD 10 Billion

Cloud-Based Firewalls or FWaaS in a Comprehensive View

In the past, firewall teams used logs with which they used to deploy changes one by one throughout different perimeters that ensured top cybersecurity. The processes created enormous administrative work for firewall admins and security leaders. The latest software now provides a single, comprehensive view that saves time for security leaders by making changes on multiple firewalls at once. This innovation has supported analyzing traffic patterns from a group of firewalls under one support system. It also enables faster security functions that mitigate risks, raise alerts immediately, and prevent network outrages. The entire cloud infrastructure adds multiple firewall deployments and provides comprehensive data views to security leaders so they can gain deep insights.

All the latest capabilities of cloud-based firewalls have made them part of the forward-looking strategic discussions among security leaders in collaboration with IT departments. Firewall as a Services scope is rising among many business leaders.

 

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