Top tips for choosing the right firewall

Threats have evolved. The network perimeter has shifted. Cybercriminals are more ruthless than ever. Meanwhile, most organisations are still using yesterday’s firewall, leaving them less efficient and more vulnerable to attack.

It is time to reimagine your firewall as your foundation for comprehensive security and stay one step ahead of cyber threats.

Here are our top tips for organisations choosing a firewall.

1. Think beyond the single control point
   
   Not long ago, the firewall sat on the edge of the network and protected an entire organisation - and for about 25 years this was enough. Not anymore. The cyber security landscape changes rapidly, hard-and-fast perimeters are a thing of the past, and your network needs to adapt. Firewalls must enforce common policy with multiple intelligent control points and complete visibility where you need it. With a comprehensive firewalling strategy, you can deploy regular security controls where needed. Collecting, sharing, and responding to context about users, locations, and devices, to ensure you meet your organisation’s security requirements. This integrated approach offers full visibility with prioritised alerts, unified policy, shared threat intelligence, and greater user and device authentication.
   
   
2. Use best-in-class security intelligence
   
   Protecting networks against more sophisticated threats requires industry-leading intelligence and consistent protections everywhere. Knowledge is power, and firewalls operating with Cisco Talos benefit from “the largest commercial threat intelligence team in the world, comprised of leading researchers, analysts, and engineers.” which protects Cisco customers against known and new cyber threats, uncovers new vulnerabilities in common software, and stop threats in the wild before they can further harm the internet at large.
   
   
   
3. Look into cloud-based management
   
   Fragmented management, inconsistent policies, and having to update your firewall manager just mean more work. With cloud management, we can take care of that for you. Using cloud-based centralised management, we can assist your security team to reduce network complexity and align policies throughout the organisation. Policies can be rapidly implemented across thousands of enforcement points, and with a single management console, you can easily uncover inconsistencies and improve your security posture. 
   
   
   
4. Take an open security platform approach
   
   Investing in a firewall should meet your needs not only for today, but also for the future. Secure your organisation confidently with a comprehensive integrated open security platform. Open platforms improve your security by providing full visibility across your infrastructure, whatever products you use. Choosing a platform approach, with firewall at its foundation, allows better decision making with extensive threat detection, security analytics, and common policy management. The top platforms in the market lower complexity with out-of-the-box integrations by automating security workflows for threat analysis, tracking, and remediation. Protect your infrastructure with best-of-breed products on an integrated, open platform so you can increase operational efficiency and precision, while reducing operational costs.
   
   
   
5. Choose a vendor that supports you today and tomorrow
   
   The world is changing fast, and perhaps your business is too. You need a vendor that can assist now and for what’s coming next. We partner with leading security provider, Cisco, who protect 100 percent of the Fortune 100. With unrivalled threat intelligence and an industry-leading zero trust approach, we believe Cisco is one of the best equipped vendors to help businesses build an efficient security strategy to face tomorrow’s threats.
   
   
   
6. Consider the Cisco Refresh option
   
   If you don’t have the option of buying new equipment, or if you have a big project and want to optimise your budget, look no further than Cisco Refresh - which provides Cisco certified remanufactured equipment at a fraction of the price. Not only you can get the Cisco quality with the same warranty and support options you would get with new products, but you can decrease lead times with speedy delivery, all while supporting your sustainability goals.
   
   

At Chulo, part of the Ampito Group, we can provide businesses with a wide range of certified remanufactured Cisco equipment, including Cisco Secure Firewalls such as Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services, offering world-class security controls with consistent policy and visibility.