Next Generation Firewalls and Their Benefits

This report highlights the important role that firewalls play in securing the network infrastructure of any business. It provides a background on how effective these firewalls are in addressing the various security issue that plague today’s networks. It talks about the benefits that the next generation of firewalls can provide when compared to these traditional firewalls as well as detailing the key features.

Running head: NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
Next Generation Firewalls and Their Benefits
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
Abstract
Based on several researches and published papers it is understood that firewalls play an
important role in securing the network infrastructure of any business. Amongst these
firewalls there exists two main kinds of firewalls which are the traditional firewalls and the
next generation firewalls. First the report provides a background on how effective these
firewalls are in addressing the various security issue that plague today’s networks. Then the
proposal talks about the benefits that the next generation of firewalls can provide when
compared to these traditional firewalls as well as detailing the key features. Thereafter the
report provides the results where it discusses how the key features of the next generation
firewalls make them a solution against threats in every way and then ends with concluding
notes.

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NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
Introduction
The following report tries to highlight the important role that firewalls play in
securing the network infrastructure of any business. Amongst these firewalls there exists two
main kinds of firewalls which are the traditional firewalls and the next generation firewalls.
The report begins by providing a background on how effective these firewalls are in
addressing the various security issue that plague today’s networks (Antonov, Filippov and
Mamoutova 2016). Then the proposal talks about the benefits that the next generation of
firewalls can provide when compared to these traditional firewalls as well as detailing the key
features (Surana et al. 2017). Thereafter the report provides the results where it discusses how
the key features of the next generation firewalls make them a solution against threats in every
way and then ends with concluding notes.
Background
A wide number of researches have so far identified the importance of firewalls for the
roles of applying security measures in businesses. Among these quite a few papers are
advocating the use of next generation firewalls (NGFW) instead of the traditional firewalls
(Isaksson 2015). In comparison with an NGFW, traditional firewalls initially, would only use
web protocols that were not even enough to separate the numerous types of web traffic.
Because the outdated firewall solutions could not inspect data packets and distinguish
legitimate businesses from malicious entities as well as the kinds of attacks targeting and
affecting them, the firewalls would resort to either accepting or rejecting of all network
traffic. Among the most prominent differences between a traditional firewall and a next
generation firewall is the ability of the Next generation firewalls in filtering of packets on the
basis of the application in use (Malmgren and Persson 2016). This enables the firewalls to
have additional visibility and control over applications which they are capable of identifying

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by analysis and matching of signatures. These are found to help the newer breed of firewalls
in ensuring setup of comprehensive intrusion prevention and intrusion detection systems
which are essential in securing any enterprise network infrastructure be it for large, medium
or small medium sized businesses. Next generation firewalls in contrast to most of the
traditional firewalls, can also provide secure paths by which updates can be received by the
applications in future (Zapechnikov, Miloslavskaya and Tolstoy 2015). These new types of
firewalls are found to provide five key features like the following multi-functionality,
application awareness, streamlined infrastructure, threat protection and network speed
(Bonnie et al. 2017). These are enough reasons why businesses are looking forward to
making the switch towards adopting next generation firewall systems or replace their existing
traditional firewalls with one of these.
Research findings
The next generation firewalls are found to use whitelists or even implement intrusion
prevention systems (IPS) based on signatures for distinguishing between the safe and
unwanted applications and are identified with the help of SSL decryption (Sparrow et al.
2016). A more detailed analysis of their features can be found below.
Among the key features, provided by the next generation firewalls is the multi-
functional aspect. Traditional firewalls have only been providing basic filtering of packets,
networking, translation of port addresses, stateful inspections and would support virtual
private networks (Tran and Ahn 2016). Yet these are only limited to the protocols of the data
link and the transport layers. On top of these functionalities of the traditional firewalls, the
Next generation firewalls additionally include a well-integrated intrusion detection system or
IDS and intrusion prevention system or IPS which can detect the threats to the network on the

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NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
basis of behavioural analysis of the network traffic, threat definitions and other malicious
activities.
Another important feature of next generation firewall is application awareness. The
traditional firewalls usually tend to restrict commonly used applications services as well as
ports on networks for controlling application accesses as well as monitoring particular cyber
threats (Aksoy and Desai 2019). But as network connectivity continues to grow more and
more complex, a range of applications exist that make use of more than one ports, thus it
becomes difficult for average traditional firewalls in identifying which port is targeted.
Furthermore, the ports are used for other different purposes as well like network tunnels,
through which protocols of the network get encapsulated within packets carried by the other
networks and de-encapsulated again at their destination (Donenfeld, J.A., 2017). For
addressing this, the next generation firewalls actively monitor traffic from the layer 2 and all
the way up to layer 7 of OSI reference as also the solution is intelligent enough to understand
what type of messages are being transmitted (Arunkumar et al. 2017). Only contents meeting
the firewall policies are passed through while others are blocked. Thus next generation
firewalls enable to set up policy rules based on user types and application.
For tackling newer threats, the traditional firewalls always need separate security
appliances every single time and this can lead to excess expenditures and cost overruns for in
order to merely maintain or operate these devices or applications (Pesé, Schmidt and Zweck
2017). On top of this, the level of configuration required for the wide set of rules in
identifying or managing traffic when using dynamic IP addresses often turns out to be in
mess for these old fashioned firewalls. Moreover, the firewalls do not even offer many of the
necessary controls for securing the users, applications or the content. Next generation
firewalls on the other hand offer virus cleaners, spam filters, deep packet inspection as also
application control through a standalone device or console (Medhat et al. 2016). Hence there

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is no need for additional equipment thereby reducing the unnecessary expenditures and
complexities for businesses when securing their network through a streamlined infrastructure.
In dealing with information security threats, the next generation firewalls come
incorporated with antivirus as well as malware removal features. These features are regularly
upgraded and updated. They also reduce the areas from which attacks can take place by
placing a limit to the number of applications that are running. Thus next generation firewalls
scan the approved set of applications or vulnerabilities and leakage of sensitive data as also
mitigates threats from other applications and therefore helps with efficient usage of network
bandwidth. This cannot be performed using traditional firewalls.
It is sometimes seen that some traditional firewall vendors advertising throughput
specifications for each of the port but that the ratings hardly translate to reality. The increase
in number of devices and protection services offered by traditional firewalls actually ends up
choking the network speed. By when the network reaches the user, the network speed gets
divided by a factor of 3. When using next generation firewalls there is basically zero effect on
network speeds.
Results
From the research findings it can be known that out of the firewalls which are
standard set of security toolkits that are being used for securing the networks of most of the
organizations, based on the treat scenario of the present day, it is the next generation firewalls
that are found to be the only solutions for tackling the new age threats and therefore the
preferred choice for most organizations.
It can be easily known from the features discussed above that the next generation
firewalls excel in offering state of the art intrusion detection systems and intrusion protection
systems which are not the strong points of the traditional firewalls. Intrusion detection system

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or IDS and intrusion protection system or IPS are the counter measures used for restricting
malicious cyber actors like the hackers in compromising the network of an organization
(Sayeed, Sayeed and Saxena 2015). Hence the lack of any IDS or IPS measures exposes the
organization’s network to possible exploits by these malicious entities. These exploits can
include stealing of sensitive information, injection of malware, locking down of files and
charging huge sums (ransoms) for unlocking them using ransomwares as also of subjecting
the network to distributed denial of service attacks or DDoS. The IDS and IPS security
measures along with SSL encryption help next generation firewalls address these information
security threats with ease. Thus, next generation firewalls can fulfil multiple purposes of a
standard firewall as well as a perimeter network or DMZ in one standalone security suite.
The next generation firewalls are also found to be application aware as they
proactively monitor all way from the application layer to the data link layer of the networks
and evaluate network traffic based on the type of data being sent and received and checks
whether such network activity meets the policies that are set within the firewall (Shah and
Parvez 2015). Thus, next generation firewalls rely on intelligently understanding the network
activity of the organization instead of imposing blanket blocking of application services and
ports which ends up jeopardizing legitimate network traffic more often than not. These
policies within the next generation firewalls can be setup based on user profiles, applications
and data.
It can also be known from the research that the next generation firewalls do away with
the complexities and cost burdens of traditional firewalls when tackling different kinds of
threats. The traditional firewalls may need additional tools utilities and hardware for removal
of viruses, providing real time protection, proactive threat detection, use of spam filters and
web security (Demertzis and Iliadis 2019). The next generation firewalls offer all such
solution in one package be it one firewall device or a single security console through a

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streamline architecture (Gutiérrez et al. 2016). Thus, next generation firewalls are optimum
for increasing operating efficiency of networks of all organizations.
Since the next generation firewalls are found to come integrated with antivirus,
antimalware as well as web security solutions, there is better coherence and interoperability
amongst the security features. This makes the next generation firewalls the most
comprehensive solutions in tackling security threats. On top of this, the threat definitions and
signature library of these firewalls are periodically updated as well as upgrades to the
different modules of such firewalls automatically installed. This keeps the firewalls up to date
all the time. Next generation firewalls can also control the areas from which an attack can
take place by limiting the number of applications being run. Also, these firewalls can be used
set approved list of applications and unwanted list of applications where the firewall scans the
approved applications for vulnerabilities before letting them run while the unwanted list of
applications are not moved to the approved list until they are found to be risk free. This
segregation helps in making efficient utilization of the network bandwidth which is not
possible with traditional firewalls.
The next generation firewalls also make sure that all these comprehensive security
measures in tackling information security threats do not come associated with inflicting any
negative impact on the performance or speed of the network. Despite some of the traditional
firewall vendors advertising the throughput speeds generally 1 Gb/s of the ports and
interfaces, such speeds can never be enjoyed in real life as the excess rules and complexities
of security measures and protection services offered turns out choking the entire network and
thus negatively affecting the speed of the network. This is the prime reason the network speed
for traditional firewalls in real life is nowhere close to what is advertised. On the next
generation firewalls however, there is basically zero impact on the performance and speed of
the network.

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NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
As a result, the advantages that can be obtained from the next generation firewalls
compared to the traditional firewalls if implemented in the network by businesses of any size
becomes as clear as daylight. It is to be note that despite the high cost of acquiring these
state-of-the-art security solutions, for any business this ends up being a one-time expenditure.
This is because unlike the traditional firewalls the maintenance cost of next generation
firewalls is negligible. This makes the next generation firewalls turn out to be more
economical and therefore the recommended solution for all businesses in today’s threat
landscape.
Conclusion
In conclusion the above report succeeds in highlighting the important role that
firewalls play in securing the network infrastructure of any business. Amongst these firewalls
there exists two main kinds of firewalls which are the traditional firewalls and the next
generation firewalls. The report is observed to provide a background on how effective these
firewalls are in addressing the various security issue that plague today’s networks. Then the
proposal talks about the benefits that the next generation of firewalls can provide when
compared to these traditional firewalls as well as detailing the key features. Thereafter the
report provides the results where it discusses how the key features of the next generation
firewalls make them a solution against threats in every way.

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NEXT GENERATION FIREWALLS AND THEIR BENEFITS
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