Is a Next Generation Firewall the Right Choice for Your Business?

By David Hollingsworth, Managing Member with Avid Communications, answering the question, “Is a Next Generation Firewall the Right Choice for Your Business?

When thinking about Enhanced Firewall Services offered by the new Next Generation Firewall, it’s very important to evaluate your organization’s priorities with regards to securing business assets and intellectual property.

Discuss the following questions with the key stakeholders or leaders within your organization to determine your organization’s security priorities and or requirements:

1) Do you maintain on-premise applications or systems that are accessed via the internet by your customers, vendors and/or mobile employees?  

These applications may include, but are not limited to, your company website, file sharing applications, on-site cameras, POS system, building management systems, etc.

2) Do you have PCI and/or HIPAA Compliance requirements?

 

3) Are you concerned about employee productivity?

• Would you like to limit or block employee access to sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or other social media sites?
• Would you like to block employee access to streaming media sites such as Netflix, Youtube, Pandora or Spotify?
• Do you allow employees, customers and vendors to bring their own devices (laptops, tablets and smart phones) and connect them to your corporate LAN and/or WIFI?

If you answered Yes to any of the above questions, then an Enhanced/Next Generation Firewall may be the right choice for your organization. Avid can help you make the right choice and seamlessly integrate the solution.

It’s important to point out that your company’s security posture requires much more than a state of the art firewall. The majority of cyber attacks are successful because systems, applications and operating systems are not properly updated or patched. A second significant source of successful cyber attacks are targeted email phishing attacks against unsuspecting employees.

An Enhanced Firewall can help mitigate some of these cyber attacks but it cannot fully stop it.

As a small business owner it’s important to keep some of the following stats in-mind when considering the correct security posture for your business.

• 43 percent of cyber attacks target small business.*
• Only 14 percent of small businesses rate their ability to mitigate cyber risks, vulnerabilities and attacks as highly effective.*
• 60 percent of small companies go out of business within six months of a cyber attack.*
• 43 percent of small business data security breaches are caused by Email Phishing / Social Engineering. *

* Source: Small Business Trends, CYBER SECURITY STATISTICS – Numbers Small Businesses Need to Know January 3, 2017