What is a next-generation firewall?
A traditional firewall provides stateful inspection of network traffic. It allows or blocks traffic based on state, port, and protocol, and filters traffic based on administrator-defined rules.
A next-generation firewall (NGFW) does this, and so much more. In addition to access control, NGFWs can block modern threats such as advanced malware and application-layer attacks. According to Gartner's definition, a next-generation firewall must include:
- Standard firewall capabilities like stateful inspection
- Integrated intrusion prevention
- Application awareness and control to see and block risky apps
- Threat intelligence sources
- Upgrade paths to include future information feeds
- Techniques to address evolving security threats
