10 Reasons To Upgrade Your Firewall
Firewalls are one of the best methods for identifying and stopping cyberattacks, including advanced threats like malware, ransomware and encrypted threats.
But firewalls must be regularly updated to keep pace with the fast-moving cyber arms race. Explore the top 10 reasons to upgrade to the latest next-generation firewall to save costs, increase speeds, boost performance and productivity, and mitigate the most advanced cyberattacks.
Stop the Most Advanced Threats
Advanced cyber threats are on the rise and affect all businesses and organizations. Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) sandbox service provides high security effectiveness against advanced persistent threats and new attacks, including ‘never-before-seen’ ransomware, malware and side-channel attacks. Each day, Capture ATP subscribers discover and stop over 1,000 new attacks each business day.
Inspect More Encrypted Traffic without Slowing Performance
Never be forced to choose between performance and security. With the increased network bandwidth requirements from SaaS apps, video streaming and social media, firewalls with faster deep packet inspection (DPI) better secure networks without performance degradation.
In fact, through the first three quarters of 2019, SonicWall registered 3.1 million encrypted attacks. This marked a 58% yearover-year increase from 2018. Simply, faster DPI performance provides organizations with a greater capacity to utilize higher internet speeds and support more concurrent users — all without sacrificing security.
Inspect Encrypted Traffic without Increasing Costs
The vast majority of web traffic is now encrypted. And without the proper security controls in place, traffic encrypted by TLS/SSL standards provides cybercriminals a backdoor to your network. That’s why deep packet inspection of encrypted traffic (DPI for TLS/SSL) is mandatory for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, some firewall vendors upcharge you for proper TLS/SSL inspection capabilities (or don’t offer it at all).
Growing Remote Workforce
Modern-day mobility and BYOD require companies to provide employees with secure access to data — anytime and anywhere. A larger number of secure VPN connections is essential to support the increasing number of remote users. But based on the firewall(s) you have deployed, you may have a limit on how many remote employees you can protect at a single time.
Support Faster Wi-Fi Speeds
The world is wireless. Wi-Fi speeds — and users’ appetite for connectivity — are increasing exponentially. The 802.11ac wireless standard delivers the performance, range and reliability of highspeed wireless technology for an enhanced user experience. But in a properly secured environment, they must be paired with a firewall that can support 802.11ac wireless standards.
Reduce Support Costs
Single sign-on (SSO) technology helps improves employee productivity and reduce IT support costs by enabling users to safely gain access to connected systems with a single ID and password. Simply, the more users can access with a single ID, fewer support calls, IT tickets and complaints will be generated. This equals real savings to your organization.
Protect More Concurrent Users
There should rarely be a limit on how many users you are able to protect. A higher number of concurrent connections provides greater scalability by enabling more simultaneous user sessions to be active and protected by the firewall.
Increase Speed to Keep Pace with Threat Processing
Modern cybersecurity requires firewalls that can manage network traffic quicker to deliver the high performance needed for modern-day threat processing. Legacy firewalls can’t process as much traffic volume, sometimes hindering performance and efficiency. This can lead businesses not getting the full use out of their promised internet speeds.
Boost Memory for Added Users, Logs & Policies
The number of users who require security on your network grows by the day. Unfortunately, the on-board memory of legacy firewalls can only support a finite footprint of users on the network. Advanced firewalls offer more onboard memory to allow for more rules and policies, users and log messages to be stored on the firewall, making reporting easily accessible.
Boost Performance, Security with Additional VLANs
Creating a greater number of virtual local area networks (VLAN) enables organizations to segment users and devices into additional groups, improving performance and security while reducing hardware costs. The ability to scale these VLANs depends on a number of factors, most notably how many may be protected by a firewall.
How long has it been since your office upgraded? It is recommend that you replace your firewall every 3 to 5 years. Contact us today to get your firewall upgraded to the latest SonicWall or Cisco equipment.
Radiant Technology Solutions
727-493-4723
