An Overview of Cloud Firewall: Definition/Advantages/Types

What Is Cloud Firewall

A cloud firewall is a security product that, like a traditional firewall, filters out potentially malicious network traffic. Unlike traditional firewalls, cloud firewalls are hosted in the cloud. This cloud-delivered firewall model is also known as firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS).

Cloud-based firewalls form a virtual barrier around cloud platforms, infrastructure, and applications in the same way that traditional firewalls form a barrier around an organization’s internal network. Cloud firewalls can also protect on-premises infrastructure.

Types of Cloud Firewall

There are two types of cloud firewalls – the difference depends on what you need help protecting.

SaaS firewalls: It is designed to protect an organization’s network and its users – unlike traditional on-premises hardware or software firewalls. The only difference is that it is deployed offsite from the cloud. This type of firewall can be called:

• Software as a Service Firewall (SaaS Firewall)
• Security as a Service (SECaaS)
• Firewall as a Service (FWaaS)

Next-Generation Firewall: It is a cloud-based service designed to be deployed in virtual data centers. They secure an organization’s servers in a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model. Firewall applications exist on virtual servers and protect incoming and outgoing traffic between cloud-based applications.

Advantages of Cloud Firewall

The following are the advantages of the cloud firewall:

• Scalability: With much simpler deployment, organizations can right-size their security solutions without the frustration inherent in on-site installation, maintenance, and upgrades. As bandwidth increases, Cloud Firewall can automatically adjust to maintain peering.
• Extensibility: Cloud firewalls can reach and be installed anywhere an organization can provide a protected network communication path. For on-premises devices, this scalability is limited by the resources available to the organization looking for a firewall solution.
• Availability: Cloud firewall providers account for the built-in cost of high availability by supporting infrastructure. This means guaranteeing redundant power, HVAC and network services, and automating backup strategies in the event of a site failure.
• Migration Security: Cloud firewalls can filter traffic from various sources; the Internet, between virtual networks, between tenants, and even virtual data centers. It secures the connection established between the physical data center and the cloud.
• Secure access parity: Cloud firewalls provide the same level of secure access as on-premises firewalls.

Risk of Cloud Firewall

A potential downside of any cloud-based service (especially cloud firewalls) is that users must rely on the availability of their FaaS provider. Any level of downtime by a cloud firewall service provider can expose multiple organizations to security breaches without immediate security measures in place. Because of this, many service providers have security teams in place to deal with major issues.

Cloud Firewall vs Next-Generation Firewall

A next-generation firewall (NGFW) is a firewall that includes new technologies not available in earlier firewall products, such as:

• Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): An intrusion prevention system detects and blocks network attacks.
• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): The NGFW inspects packet headers and payloads, not just headers. This helps detect malware and other types of malicious data.
• Application Control: NGFWs can control what individual applications can access, or block applications entirely.

NGFWs can run in the cloud or as on-premises hardware. Cloud-based firewalls may have NGFW capabilities, but on-premises firewalls may also be NGFWs.

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Final Words

What is the cloud firewall? What are the different types of the cloud firewall? The answers to these related questions, you can find in the above content. I hope that this post be useful to you.