Managed Firewall Service

Firewalls are not the “set it and forget it” devices that they used to be. For an organization to have adequate security these days, they need to strongly consider having a managed firewall service.

A firewall is comprised of two components: The hardware and the software.

The hardware is the simple part. The hardware is the physical device that all communication on the network must pass through. When most people think of a firewall, this is what the picture because its usually a device that sits next to their router in their office.

But the hardware is useless without up-to-date software running on it.

Managed firewall services are now subscription services that get continual updates to protect against the newest threats. This is critical since there will always be new hacking techniques or viruses that can attack your system.

Firewalls have evolved to not just block external attacks. They now have the ability to intelligently evaluate the packet that’s coming in, evaluate the end point of where its coming from, and decide to allow or reject the packet.

In addition to the firewall making these evaluations, a NOC, or Network Operations Center, has real people watching the information that’s pass from the firewall.

At H&D Technologies, we are the NOC for all of our clients. We’re able to see all of our clients activity from one central location, and when a problem arises, we can push out the appropriate updates to every client in real-time.

One of the objections people have to purchasing a managed firewall service is that they already have anti-virus software. And while its important to have anti-virus installed, no anti-virus software is 100% secure. The other thing people don’t think about is that virus software and firewall software are only as good as their last update. When a new threat comes out, if your device is not up to date to deal with that threat, in many cases it’s like having no protection at all.

A firewall now typically includes:

• Additional Anti-virus protection
• AntiMalware
• IDS-Intrusion Detection System
• IPS- Intrusion Prevention System

A managed firewall service provides additional protection without having to rely on antivirus software alone.

Give us a call today to speak with a tech about your network and what would be involved in setting up a managed firewall service for your organization.