Next-Generation FIREWALL...5 Tips for choosing a Next-Generation Firewall As more and more cybersecurity issues threaten our shores, we are never safe from the world of cybercrime.

Tips

FIREWALL

for choosing a

JT Group Limited@jt_business

Next-Generation

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TIPS FOR CHOOSING A NEXT-GENERATION FIREWALL


5 Tips for choosing a Next-Generation FirewallAs more and more cybersecurity issues threaten our shores, we are never safe from the world of cybercrime.

As hackers have discovered ways to bypass traditional legacy firewalls, a plethora of Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW) have come to the market to address and reduce the risk by providing advanced network control features.

Many of these, however, do not provide the optimum quality of threat elimination and mitigation that ALL businesses require, more so, for any small and medium-sized businesses moving their services and business data into online.

We’ve put together these 5 Tips to take into account when choosing your Managed Firewall service and provider.

Stafford Hunt

CTO JT Global Enterprise

Now, obviously, a firewall’s #1 job is to protect your network and internal devices from new and emerging threats. But when selecting your firewall, be sure you’ve got the following features:

• Superior visibility — You can’t protect against what youcan’t see. Features like ‘Deep Packet Inspection’ look insidethe data passing through your network for malicious code.This helps you see more so that attacks can be identifiedand blocked faster before they can impact your business.

• ‘Application-aware’ — an application-aware firewall controlsinput, output and access from, to, or by any application on thenetwork. Put simply, it is ‘aware’ of how apps on your networkare used and how they can be compromised. It does this bymonitoring and potentially blocking the traffic that doesn’tmeet your firewall’s configuration, keeping you safe at anapplication and user level.

• World-class threat intelligence — the best Firewallservices subscribe to Cyber Threat Intelligence feeds toblock ‘bad actors’, acting fast to protect you from new andemerging threats.

1Effective Threat Protection



Save Time and Reduce Costs

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43%of business have experienced cybersecurity breaches in the last 12 months.

UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2018)


SMEs and large companies face many of the same threats when operating online. However, not all businesses have the same resources available to help battle against them. Be sure to choose a firewall with comprehensive features specifically designed to help you accomplish more with fewer resources.

• Proactive prevention by design – The best cure isprevention. The more threats your service spots andblocks before they impact your business, the better.

• Managed Monitoring – Monitoring a network 24/7 can bea real drain on your resources. A service inclusive ofmonitoring means you can drastically reduce the impacton your team so that they can focus on business as usual.

Ease of UseWhether or not you’re operating your firewall, functionality and ease of use are essential. The following qualities will make sure you get the most out of your firewall.

• Easy to buy – An obvious one perhaps, but this can bea roadblock at times. Look for a firewall with varyingservice levels for different business sizes. This way youcan ensure you get the right ‘size’ (based on networktraffic and connection), that is cost effective for yourbusiness whether you’re an SME or a large corporatewith substantial network traffic volumes.

• Easy to manage – if you intend to manage the firewallyourself (and not take advantage of fully managed andmonitored options) then ensure you have a friendlyuser interface with straightforward controls andconfiguration options.

• Easy to understand and expert interpretation ofreports, so as to ensure you can act quickly andefficiently should you identify any risks to yourorganisation.

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Fully Managed and Alerts4

Often, outsourcing the management of the firewall will be the best option, so be sure your firewall service has the option to be managed and monitored, 24/7.

• Fully Managed – This means you don’t need toupskill or allocate valuable resources to maintain andmake changes to your configuration — a cost-effective solution, long term.

• 24/7 monitoring – This gives you peace of mindknowing your expert service provider is keepingwatch over your system for threats, spotting andblocking attacks before they can impact yourbusiness or your end customers.

• Resilience – The ability to restore your internetconnection quickly in the event of network orhardware failure with on island spares and 4G failover.

• Regular patching and tuning – This ensures yournext-generation firewall is delivering optimumprotection.



A top tip: Be sure to look for a service with “prioritised alerts” with experts to help you focus efforts in the right place at the right time, when it’s needed most.

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RAPID DETECTIONThe current industry standard time to detect a threat is between 100 to 200 days (Cisco 2018).

Your business may depend on it, so early detection of any threats entering your network is essential. When choosing your next-generation firewall be sure you can:

• Detect threats in seconds

• Detect any successful breach within hours or evenminutes.

• Detect and block malicious, infected andinappropriate web sites

And, in the event that a breach or a significant threat is identified, be sure your provider will be on hand to work through a resolution with you.

£16,100is the average cost of a breach for Medium sized businessesUK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2018)




WHAT’S NEXT?If, like many, you’re wondering what steps to take now you’ve seen our 5 Top Tips, why not speak to our cybersecurity experts?

Over the years, we’ve developed a high level of expertise delivering business security and connectivity solutions to local businesses. By bringing these together we’re pleased to be able to offer our new Next-Generation Managed Firewall service.

This service is explicitly designed to helps businesses prevent cyber-attacks and unauthorised access, reduce costs and keep business running as usual without unwanted interruptions: this could be just what you’re looking for.

So contact us using the details below as your next step in securing your business.

To find out more contact us at:

T +44 20 7920 2000E [email protected] W www.jtglobalenterprise.co.uk

https://www.jtglobalenterprise.co.uk/solutions/security/next-gen-security-platform/

https://www.jtglobalenterprise.co.uk

Next-Generation FIREWALL...5 Tips for choosing a Next-Generation Firewall As more and more cybersecurity issues threaten our shores, we are never safe from the world of cybercrime.

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