Firewalls need to be more integrated — insight on firewalls by Sophos’ Sumit Bansal

Firewalls are known to be pretty much the first line defense between your system and the dangerous world out there. Firewalls are supposed to block unknown threats and automatically prevent untoward incidents from causing downtime. The enterprise firewall market is valued at USD 3.1 billion (~RM 12.2 billion) last year here in the Asia Pacific region. But are they effective?

Despite firewalls designed to prevent global outbreaks such as WannaCry and NotPetya, these threats still hit and spread through corporate networks like wildfire. Why so? Sumit Bansal, the Managing Director of ASEAN and Korea, Sophos, puts it down to the fact that a lot of firewalls are like a blackbox and hold “dirty secrets” within which doesn’t allow IT managers to monitor their network traffic properly.

Firewall systems must be integrated and have the ability to work with other systems – Sumit Bansal

He believes that next-generation firewalls should work together with other security measures to ensure the security of a network, and not try to do a one-man show. An integrated firewall, with simple and actionable insights provided into the network security is important. Then there is the selection of your network protection solution, as not all solutions provide the same level of defense. Some Intrustion Prevention System (IPS) engines can block up to 90% of threats, while others are only capable of stopping around 25%.

He strongly hammers the point home that you need a an agile, adaptive system that can be controlled when necessary for better protection. The solution must also be able to work in unison with other security measures for a well-protected system. With this, IT professionals can see through the firewall fog.

Pokdepinion: Security is important for every organization, and the ever-evolving threats need equally adaptive protection measures.