What Gartner Says About Next-Generation Firewalls
Gartner recently published a research note, “Defining the Next-Generation Firewall,” which states that “Changing business processes, the technology that enterprises deploy, and threats are driving new requirements for network security”. Gartner warns that "To meet these challenges, firewalls need to evolve into what Gartner has been calling ‘next-generation firewalls.'"
Gartner’s key findings include:
- The stateful protocol filtering and limited application awareness offered by first-generation firewalls are not effective in dealing with current and emerging threats.
- Using separate firewalls and intrusion prevention appliances results in higher operational costs and no increase in security over an optimized combined platform.
- NGFWs are emerging that can detect application-specific attacks and enforce application-specific granular security policy, both inbound and outbound.
Gartner’s Recommendations
In the same research note, Gartner issues the following recommendations to enterprise clients:
- If you have not yet deployed network intrusion prevention, require NGFW capabilities at your next firewall refresh point.
- If you have deployed both network firewalls and network intrusion prevention, synchronize the refresh cycle for both technologies and migrate to NGFW capabilities.
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