What is Firewall Security?
A firewall is a security device that protects networks by filtering network traffic and blocking unauthorised users from gaining access to data on computers.
Firewalls decide whether to allow or deny network traffic based on a set of pre-determined security rules, and work by establishing a barrier between secured and controlled internal networks and untrusted outside networks, such as the Internet, boosting privacy and preventing attacks.
Firewalls have traditionally been the first line of defence for network security management teams, and have become a critical security tool as the global use of the internet has increased over time.
How do BCN’s Managed Firewall services work?
Powerful security features with maximum flexibility and minimum effort.
Our security experts will manage the administration, operation, monitoring, and maintenance of your managed firewall infrastructure in order to maintain security and business continuity without having to invest in expensive resource and processes, freeing your staff to focus on their core responsibilities.
Features and benefits of a BCN Managed Firewall include:
Reduced costs
Avoid the cost of expensive security-skilled personnel.
Policy and rule-base changes
As your business continues to evolve, our team will assist in keeping your Firewall and NAT rules up to date to recommended industry standard security practices.
Proactive monitoring
Managed firewalls will proactively monitor your device metrics, availability, health and configuration at an early stage, to prevent larger and more costly security attacks to your business’ network.
VPN configurations
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) enable remote working employees to securely connect to your business’ server using the routing infrastructure provided by a public network e.g. the internet. Our VPN software includes services such as user authentication and data encryption, ensuring that a secure point-to-point channel of communication is achieved.
Backup
To support our customers recovery following a failure, natural disaster, or cyber-attack, our firewall security services are fully backed up, meaning your business-critical information, data and system configuration files are always recoverable.
Remote helpdesk support
Our team are only a call away. We will act as an extension of your business, providing proactive support and advice when your business needs it.
Hardware and Software inventory
We will provide your business with a full hardware and software inventory assessment. Providing you will a full audit on your business’ technological configuration.
Patch management
BCN’s managed firewall services will make sure that our customers patches are regularly reviewed and updated accordingly, ensuring your defenses are working at their best.
Incident and Event management
Our incident and event management tools will provide you with real-time visibility across your business’ security systems, consolidate your business data, and provide automatic security alert notifications. Stay on top of your security with BCN’s incident and event management.
Regular reporting
Get regular reports of your firewalls performance, and gain full visibility of any potential violations of your firewalls pre-configured security policy.
What is a Next Generation Firewall?
BCN Groups’ next generation firewalls deliver industry-leading enterprise security. A next-gen firewall is a high-performance network security appliance that adds intrusion prevention, application and user visibility, SSL inspection, and unknown threat detection to the traditional firewall.
Secure
Traffic coming in and out of your systems creates opportunities for threats to penetrate your business operations. With preestablished rules, network firewalls monitor and analyse network traffic keeping your computers and networks protected.
Scalable
BCN’s next generation managed firewalls are scalable. What does that mean? Well as your business scales and grows, and your network traffic increases, your managed firewalls ability to monitor and analyse network traffic at “wire speed” wont degrade in performance.
Speed and operational efficiency
A high performing, next generation firewall will ensure that network performance is optimised. This means you do not have to worry about employee productivity, and your business is able to be reactive and agile.
Customisable
BCN’s next generation firewalls are fully customisable, meaning we can tailor the filters of your firewall to the exact specifications that your business needs.
Partnering with Fortinet. Here’s a rundown of our FortiGate Firewall appliances:
Managed firewall features:
Networking
- Delivers advanced networking capabilities that seamlessly integrate with advanced layer 7 security and virtual domains (VDOMs) to offer extensive deployment flexibility, multi-tenancy and effective utilization of resources
- Delivers high-density, flexible combination of various high-speed interfaces to enable best TCO for customers for data center and WAN deployments
Management
- Includes a management console that is effective, simple to use, and provides comprehensive network automation and visibility
- Provides Zero Touch Integration with Security Fabric’s Single Pane of Glass Management
- Predefined compliance checklist analyses the deployment and highlights best practices to improve overall security posture
Security
- Identifies thousands of applications inside network traffic for deep inspection and granular policy enforcement
- Protects against malware, exploits, and malicious websites in both encrypted and non-encrypted traffic
- Prevent and detect against known and unknown attacks using continuous threat intelligence from AI-powered FortiGuard Labs security services
Performance
- Delivers industry’s best threat protection performance and ultra-low latency using purpose-built security processor technology
- Provides industry-leading performance and protection for SSL encrypted traffic
Certification
- Independently tested and validated best security effectiveness and performance
- Received unparalleled third-party certifications from NSS Labs
Security Fabric
- Enables Fortinet and Fabric-ready partners’ products to provide broader visibility, integrated end-to-end detection, threat intelligence sharing, and automated remediation
Software vs Hardware Firewall
BCN provide both software and hardware firewalls, but which is the best for your business? This will depend on your environment. Both options are designed to perform similar functions, but in slightly different ways.
Hardware firewalls:
Hardware firewall are physical units that sit directly behind the router and are configured to analyse inbound and outbound traffic, filtering out specific threats it comes across. Hardware units have several benefits:
- Intelligently control the traffic that reaches your server to proactively protect your business from harmful traffic.
- Configure your firewall with specific rules for all traffic to better protect your business from data leakage and cyber-attacks.
- Ease the burden on other server resources.
Software Firewalls:
Software firewalls on the other hand are installed directly on a computer or server but are also configured to analyse and filter out unwanted traffic based on a set of predefined rules. Software firewalls have a number of benefits:
- Generally cost less initially than their hardware counterpart
- Require no space to install as they are applications
- Much simpler to install
BCN’s approach to Network Firewall Security
As a managed service provider, our managed firewall services are set up according to our Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), a guide that ensures our team securely installs our services and solutions at the highest industry level, complying with all industry standards.
We provide our customers with a full strategy to deploy their firewall security and ensure the firewall and user accounts are secured. Depending on the type of firewall you choose, we will either decide with you which traffic you want to monitor or that will already be pre-defined, giving you full control on how your security infrastructure is managed and installed.
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Why choose BCN for Managed Firewall?
BCN Group have partnered with the best in the business when it comes to Firewall security. Our partner Fortinet secures the largest enterprises, service providers, and government organisations in the world and was ranked #1 in the SMB use case in the 2022 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls.
Technology is now a fundamental part of our working lives improving efficiency and connectivity, but it has also opened the door to cyber-crime. When it comes to your business’ security, why not partner with the best.
What is more, our three-step approach ensures that our customers are provided with most effective solutions, consistently delivered.