So, you’ve got tons of bandwidth available. Now, what about your firewall & network security?
In this article, we look at how Security as a Service (SaaS) improves business network security and reduces costs.
Over the last couple of years, the impact of Gigabit Internet connections has been enormous, with service providers offering a variety of fibre gigabit internet connections (some better than others). Businesses have quite rightly jumped at the opportunity of increasing network connection speeds.
For those lucky SMEs who are now achieving tremendous connection speeds for less than the cost of a 10Mbps Fibre circuit 4-5 years ago, Gigabit Internet has removed barriers to offsite replication, having remote workers and provides more than enough bandwidth to support HD video conferencing.
Great. What Are The Security Implications?
With such vast throughput speeds now readily available, there is much more pressure on the network security appliance (firewall), sitting between your users and the big, bad Internet.
Check The Specs!
Cast an eye over the technical specs of any security appliance, and you’ll likely find that the amount of ‘throughput’ varies depending on how many features it’s running. There’s a running joke in our industry that for every feature you enable on your firewall, you should halve the amount of expected throughput. Switching the firewall on counts as a feature! It’s a fact that ‘real world’ throughput is often far lower than the published specs, so always best to consult with an expert for specific system capabilities.
Back in the 20th century, ‘firewalls’ were created to block/allow traffic through ‘ports’, based on reasonably straightforward criteria.
Nowadays, products such as Sonicwall Capture (see video) also scan the data traffic in real-time, determining threat levels, optimising throughput, de-encrypting/re-encrypting, reporting, alerting, synchronising with AI antivirus engines, managing Wide Area Network connectivity – the list of functions goes on and on.
Is Your Firewall Doing Its Job?
Over recent months, we’ve spoken with an increasing number of businesses who have found themselves in one of 2 camps. In the first camp are those that don’t realise their firewall isn’t scanning the traffic for threats but are instead just relying on the client software to catch viruses, malware and ransomware. In the second camp are those that don’t realise their firewall has become a connectivity bottleneck because it’s processing capacity is ‘maxed-out’, preventing real-time traffic scanning (e.g. voice/video) from working consistently.
Ultimately, both issues might have serious consequences.
Introducing Security As A Service!
Don’t buy a firewall. There, I said it!
For many reasons, the best option for businesses right now is to consume network security and cybersecurity ‘as a service’ (SaaS). Not just at the ‘edge’ of the network, but to actively monitor the behaviour of all devices on it.
Businesses can also place additional layers of protection outside the premises, stripping-out unwanted traffic before it gets to the edge of the network.
The beauty of this approach is that it can be scaled-up or scaled-down, adding or removing features and services as required without any capital outlay.
On the contrary, it’s a critical (and I do mean critical) OpEx cost to the business but without the worry generally associated with keeping systems up to date, adding more processing power or checking system effectiveness.
That’s our job!
Are your systems 100% up to date?
How confident are you that they’ll catch the latest threats from cybercriminals?
Why not have a chat with one of our team? We’ll explain how this all works and how you’ll save time & money by moving your outdated firewalls over to Marlin Communication’s Firewall/Security as a Service.
To get in touch, give us a call on 08000 328274 or use our contact form.
About Marlin Communications
Marlin Communications is an award-winning, leading provider of Unified Communications & collaboration solutions including voice, data, mobile, video, network security and contact centre technology for businesses of 50 – 5,000 staff.
We operate throughout the UK – with global reach – and our own, on-premises, 1,000 ft² Technology Suite at our Bath office, where we host regular events and showcase technology solutions for our clients. Contact us for your free comms audit or product demo.
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