About Firewalls and How to Stay Safe in the Cyber World

Nowadays, ransomware and cyber attacks have become common threats on the internet. Based on a recent security breach survey by the government and conducted by PWC in 2015 shows that a whooping 90% of large organisations and 74% of small businesses had a security breach, this is an increase on the 2014 and 2013 figures. Furthermore, the average cost to a large organisation started from £1.46m and from £75 on average for a small business

These figures only show how important it is to be protected against these continuous evolving cyber threats and malware.

It is crucial for any business to have sophisticated anti-malware software working in conjunction with a resistant firewall.

However, choosing the correct firewall has been a time-consuming and tremendous challenge for anyone and especially small businesses.

There’s a lot to consider like decisions on which infrastructure to take, resources to invest and user training – Welcome to the cyber jungle!

How can a firewall help?

Firewalls can be either software-based, hardware-based or a mix of both. A hardware firewall is typically found in a network / broadband router and includes firewall features.

Software firewalls are personal firewalls, which protect a single PC however some enterprise firewalls have both.

In general, here is what they should be able to do for your business:

✅ Block or prevent unauthorised access to a network.
✅ Be a barrier to keep critical elements out of a network.
✅ Work as filters for your network traffic by blocking packets of information that are seen as unsafe.
✅ Control traffic flowing in and out of networks through packet filtering, which is filtering and analysing chunks of data.

What is important to know when it comes to deciding on a firewall?

Ensure your business is protected and has the appropriate up-to-date anti-virus in conjunction with a resistant firewall. 

Here are some questions to ask before jumping into the evaluation of new firewall technology:

What type of business are you managing? Are you a small to medium-sized company or an enterprise and what is your market? The security requirements of a small construction company is completely different to the ones of a 50 people financial services company. The latter will need extra comfort and security, and therefore the latest and top of the range firewalls.

Is your staff working from home or other locations outside the office and using VNP connection or cloud products?

Unified Threat Management is a category of security appliances such as anti-virus, email security, application filtering and web filtering. Will you require UTM features?

Other things to prepare and consider:

✅ Have a shortlist of rules for the firewall to implement for the applications, i.e. block video in Google+ hangouts, however, allow videos in Skype.
✅ Choose a firewall with appropriate Random Access Memory (RAM).
✅ Be aware of Network Address Translation choices (NAT) choices when choosing your firewall.
✅ Ensure that your employees understand your company’s security policy when working from outside the office or with their own device.

Enhance Your Cybersecurity With A Cutting-Edge Firewall

As you know after reading this article, choosing the right firewall is not always an easy task. If you ever want a second pair of eyes on your preparation or just want to have a chat about cybersecurity in general, give us a call on 0330 1224 420 for a non-salesy, non-obligatory conversation and we’ll do our best to facilitate your buying decision. You can also book a session with our team at a time that suits your busy schedule.

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