Cybersecurity: You Need To Do More Than Lock Your Front Door…
Is a lock on your front door enough to keep you safe at home?
Not really—you may have turned the deadbolt, but that doesn’t mean that your windows, backdoor and garage are secure as well, right?
How Many Ways Can Cybercriminals Break Into Your Business?
The fact is that there are many ways into your home, and each and everyone has to be secured. The same goes for your IT systems.
Assuming a username and password is keeping you safe is like settling for a locked front door. There are numerous endpoints and potential points of entry to your network.
That’s why a robust firewall (like those provided by Sophos) is so important…
What Is A Firewall?
A firewall is the cornerstone of your organization’s cybersecurity defenses.
Firewalls maintain the security of your network by blocking unauthorized users from gaining access to your data. Firewalls are deployed via hardware, software, or a combination of the two.
A firewall inspects and filters incoming and outgoing data in the following ways.
- With Packet Filtering that filters incoming and outgoing data and accepts or rejects it depending on your predefined rules.
- Via an Application Gateway that applies security to applications like Telnet (a software program that can access remote computers and terminals over the Internet, or a TCP/IP computer network) and File Transfer Protocol Servers.
- With Proxy Servers, which mask your true network address and capture every message that enters or leaves your network.
- Using Stateful Inspection or Dynamic Packet Filtering to compare a packet’s critical data parts. These are compared to a trusted information database to decide if the information is authorized.
Everything above is what you can expect from a consumer-grade firewall, more or less. But what about next-generation firewalls?
Top 4 Technologies You Need In A Firewall
The most popular business-class firewalls in use today are next-generation firewalls. These are hardware or software solutions used to detect and block complicated attacks. They enforce strict security measures at the port, protocol, and application levels.
Next-generation firewalls perform a more in-depth inspection than standard firewalls—the right one will offer you the following five key technologies:
- Application Control: This capability allows you to both prioritize mission-critical application traffic as well as block or limit unwanted apps.
- Web Control: Just as you don’t want unsafe or unknown apps operating on your network, you don’t want your users visiting unsafe or unnecessary websites.
- Risk Visibility: Understanding the risks posed by your users and apps gives you more informed oversight of your network. The best firewalls provide a risk assessment report for users that correlates their network activity to identify your riskiest users.
- URL Filtering: Using both a known list of unsafe URLs, as well as a list developed by your organization, this feature will prevent end-users from visiting any dangerous websites.
- HTTPS Scanning: A majority of internet traffic is encrypted, which can make compliance enforcement challenging unless you have adequate HTTPS scanning. Your firewall should offer selective scanning and easy solutions for managing exceptions without negatively impacting performance.
How To Find A Firewall That Provides Layered Cybersecurity
The fact is that today’s cybercriminals have a vast arsenal of weapons to choose from when they target an organization like yours. You need a firewall that offers a multi-layered defense to keep you secure:
- Advanced Threat Protection: This feature allows your firewall to identify bots, APTs, and other threats operating on your network.
- Identify and Isolate Compromised Systems: In the event that you’re infected with, for example, ransomware, you need a firewall that can prevent data loss and the spread of infections to other systems on the network. This means being able to immediately identify not only the infected host, but also the user and process in the event of an incident.
- Intrusion Prevention: A next-gen IPS allows your firewall to detect hackers attempting to breach your network resources.
- Sandboxing: Sandboxing spots threats using a range of modern technologies like deep learning, exploit detection, ransomware detection, analysis of behavior, network activity, and memory utilization.
- Web Protection: Web protection features make sure that you’re protected from modern web threats including cryptojacking and botnet-recruiting.
- Email Protection: Email is a popular avenue for cybercriminals attacks, especially social engineering exploits. That’s why your firewall needs to include anti-spam and anti-phishing technologies features.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): This layer protects your servers, devices, and business applications from being hacked.
Sophos Delivers Industry-Leading Firewalls
Simplicity is key to the way Sophos designs its cybersecurity solutions. Each element works in harmony with the next, providing layers of protection for your business:
Sophos’ XG Firewalls perform an in-depth inspection of state and active directories, virtual private networks, and packet filtering. They also come with additional features like active directory integration support, SSH, and SSL inspection, as well as malware reputation-based filtering.
This solution allows you to neutralize threats, and isolate infected systems as need be. Sophos’ line of firewalls checks each and every box we explored above.
The fact is that today’s cybercriminals have a vast arsenal of weapons to choose from when they target an organization like yours. You need a firewall that offers a multi-layered defense to keep you secure.
As you can see, Sophos’ next-gen firewalls have more features than the competition and offer a better user experience. Whereas other options may be limited, or require you to invest in add-on services and products, Sophos’ offers every protection you need with one solution.
On-Site Computers Will Manage Your Sophos Firewall For You
While you may understand that you need a next-generation firewall from Sophos, now you have to go about getting one. It’s a lot of work to handle it on your own—but you don’t have to.
Instead, you can choose to work with a trusted, expert IT services company like On-Site Computers.
We have experience working with firewalls, cybersecurity technology, and organizations like yours—we can help you make the right choice, and handle the set-up for you from beginning to end.
