Firewalls have evolved far past their old days of port-based, two-way network traffic approvals. However, with these advancements comes another pressing question: How do you know you’re choosing a firewall that will protect your small business from actual cybersecurity threats — and do you even know what those threats are?
In this guide, we’ll discuss how firewalls serve as the foundation for your organization’s internal network security, plus tips for choosing which firewall is best for your applications.
In its simplest definition, a firewall acts as the primary security barrier for incoming and outgoing traffic on your network. Firewalls are designed to perform several essential IT security functions to protect your network from security threats. They do this by reading traffic information that’s leaving or entering your network and determining whether it’s is safe, according to preprogrammed definitions.
To execute its cybersecurity functions, firewalls will contain a series of pre-programmed security features, each taking care of a specific network defense layer.
Some of today’s top defense functions you’ll find across firewall products include:
Not all these features will be available in every type of firewall. When picking a network firewall for your small business, it’s essential to consider your main threat vectors — the attack surfaces or digital domains most at-risk for outside threats. From there, you can inquire with OEMs about the specific affordances included in their products, then select the best-fit solution for your needs.
Today, there are four general categories of firewalls, each with their own distinguishing architecture and cyber-defense specialties. These options include:
In addition to the four main types of network firewalls, your organization must consider if hardware or software firewall technology is a best-fit:
In many cases, the best solution is to combine hardware and software firewalls. Each option makes up for the other’s weaknesses, resulting in a robust, comprehensive barrier of security.
There are a few advantages and disadvantages surrounding hardware firewalls. Some of the benefits to consider include:
The disadvantages to a hardware firewall are:
Like its hardware cousin, software firewalls have unique benefits and a few limitations. Some of the benefits include:
Software firewalls also come with some disadvantages, including:
Deciding what to look for when choosing a network firewall for your small business is one of the most important IT decisions you’ll make. Ask yourself these questions when picking the right network firewall to fit your organization’s unique security risks, current business scale, maintenance capabilities, budget and more:
All types of firewalls serve a similar defensive function: to monitor network traffic, ensuring only code it reads as well-intentioned can pass through for employees using the internet at your workplace.
Today’s top security threats for small businesses require firewalls that do more than follow perfunctory “good” or “bad” definitions, though. At a minimum, consider different types of firewalls designed to boost the security of specific workplace applications — often ones that are business-critical, such as:
You’ll also need to note the degree of advanced features truly necessary for your operations. For example, next-generation firewalls are frequently installing sandboxing defenses to meet today’s increasingly complex malware hidden in hyperlinks.
When you or an employee clicks a link, a sandboxed-enabled firewall triggers a warning allowing you to open the link in a test virtual environment. There, the firewall analyzes its packet behavior to determine its safety and authenticity before allowing you to move forward in your link interaction.
Take inventory of your complete IT ecosystem by performing an infrastructure audit. Account for your full array of devices operating on your network in a typical workday, including:
These equipment audits are an enterprise best-practice as well as an essential preliminary step towards choosing a firewall for your small business network — they can help you distinguish between a manageable suite of software and hardware firewall types.
Keep in mind, software firewalls are built into individual devices and cannot integrate with other operating systems or OEM applications — this means each device must be configured and updated manually. Likewise, the growing reality of an omnipresent Internet of Things (IoT) presses organizations to get serious about wireless internet access controls in its devices as well as its wireless access points (WAPs), both of which a firewall can mitigate.
Even if you have a limited IT ecosystem right now, you should consider whether you plan to grow as a business. If you plan to add several more devices, then you’ll likely want a centralized solution in a hardware firewall.
Most software firewalls are not universally compatible with operating systems and manufactured devices, like Mac, Windows, Android, iOS and Chrome OS. In other words, every device, program and operating system contain its own isolated software firewalls, meaning you must individually program, configure and manage all the firewalls on all your devices. If your office will soon or eventually have dozens — if not hundreds or thousands — of such technology, software firewalls can easily become time-consuming and cumbersome.
However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use any software firewall solutions. There are still advantages to software firewalls, but you’ll likely want to also depend on a hardware firewall that will automatically protect new devices on the network.
In 2016, 43 percent of employees worked remotely in some capacity, and that percentage has likely increased over the last few years. Some employees today work solely from home, while others may telecommute as needed.
Even infrequent work-from-home policies require employers to set up the right infrastructure to support safe remote connections. One simple solution is software firewalls, but there are also ways to tie in your remote workers’ firewall protection with your workplace’s firewall.
Remote users are trafficked through your business’s VPN tunnel. Robust VPNs with fully integrated firewalls manage remote authorization, reviewing the original, out-of-network data packets for approved patterns of sources, then re-encrypting them safely back through your tunneled VPN traffic gateway.
If VPN security is a top priority for your business, consider a primary or even secondary hardware firewall type with VPN gateways built into its architecture to save time and money setting up this aspect of your organization’s network.
Reported distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks increased by 200 percent in Q1 of 2019 alone. What’s more, DDoS attacks bombarding servers at rates over 100 GB per second increased a whopping 967 percent in the same year, with few signs of slowing down.
Due to this alarming traction, more attention is being pivoted onto firewalls with dedicated architecture against DDoS threats. Specifically, firewalls with advanced firewall monitoring features integrated into the routers can give you advanced alerts when servers first appear to be unexpectedly overwhelmed — the tell-tale sign of DDoS — then trigger appropriate mitigation steps.
Real-time alerts identify when your firewall prevented malicious traffic — but also if an attack is currently underway. Preemptive detection assistance like this is routed immediately to network administrators and any other approved user.
With the real-time alert, you can swing into action, opening firewall and router activity history to identify the method of attack on your network then launch a quick, targeted response. Since firewalls are often one of the first layers recognizing any suspicious traffic, it makes sense to pick a firewall type with advance attack alert functions like this for the speediest-possible mitigation turnaround.
Even the savviest, most advanced internal IT personnel benefit from technical support provided by firewall OEMs.
Before picking the right network firewall, inquire about ongoing assistance from the manufacturer — ask:
All these customer support perks can make a huge difference in the lifespan and functionality of your firewall decision.
Software firewalls — as well as more advanced firewall types, such as stateful and proxy firewalls — can cause choke points in your network. These chokepoints are directly responsible for slow internet upload and download speeds, transaction lags and even server unreliability during important work activities and transactions.
These bandwidth lags are further complicated when running too many devices in the office, or if you’re not using the bandwidth system requirements recommended by your firewall manufacturer. Therefore, if your bandwidth can’t afford any more drain or if speed is important for your business, you’ll want to choose an option that won’t slow down your system.
Consider your network’s actual users — namely, your employees and your customers across client-facing portals or applications.
Firewalls with more granular access controls and authentication rules may be attractive here. The ability to tailor specific access boundaries through your firewalls ensures only the right people can find and use the right work applications at the right time, in the right locations.
In some cases, firewalls can even create access rules where users can interact with certain parts of an application but not the whole, creating logical case-by-case security and more administrative peace of mind.
Finally, you’ll want to consider the cost. The most affordable option for individual users is a software firewall, but a hardware solution tends to be more cost-effective, as long as you have more than a few devices on your network.
Keep in mind that equipping your business with the right firewall is an investment that can easily save you significant amounts of money if it prevents expensive data breaches. In this way, a firewall can pay for itself, so it’s shortsighted to settle for sub-par protection for the sake of your budget.
If your budgetary restrictions are an obstacle to investing in the right firewall solution, you may want to consider choosing a firewall-as-a-service option. As with other software-as-a-service models, you’ll pay a subscription fee for as long as you use the service rather than incurring a large upfront cost.
Firewalls aren’t a bullet-proof solution to every digital security threat that, once installed, makes your network impenetrable.
They’re pretty close, though — especially when your organization vets and selects the right firewall type for your current network defense needs. With these tips for picking the right network firewall, you’ll be able to find the perfect fit for your business.
Contact Morefield Communications to learn what those network defenses are for you. We tailor cost-competitive cybersecurity suites with software and hardware recommendations specifically for our clients, including some of today’s most robust next-generation firewalls.
