Firewall

The network firewall was designed for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. When corporate assets sat behind a data center perimeter, inspecting packets between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ made sense.

But today, with workloads spread across multiple clouds, SaaS platforms, and edge environments, that perimeter has dissolved. Attackers don’t need to smash through firewalls when they can compromise privileged credentials and operate from within. A rogue or stolen admin account can cause catastrophic damage, something no network firewall can stop. The battlefield has shifted from networks to identities.

Traditional runtime security solutions have tended to focus on detection and as a result generate thousands of low-fidelity alerts. Edera is launching what it says is a new software security category aimed at ending the era of 'move fast and break things'.

Edera's ‘hardened runtime’ provides production-grade sandboxing that assumes a breach before it occurs. This architectural approach eliminates the root causes of privilege escalation, lateral movement, and data exfiltration while dramatically reducing operational overhead for security teams.

New research from FireMon shows that 60 percent of enterprise firewalls fail high-severity compliance checks immediately upon evaluation, with another 34 percent falling short at critical levels.

Using data collected anonymously from AI-powered analytics platform FireMon Insights deployments across large enterprises and regulated industries, the study found misconfigurations, outdated rules, and bloated policies that bog down performance and leave security teams struggling to keep up.

Microsoft has issued a warning about a recent update for Windows 11. The KB5060829 update was released late last month as a non-security preview update, and it has been found to be causing issues.

Available for Windows 11 24H2, the optional KB5060829 update has been causing Windows Firewall With Advanced Security errors to be logged by the operating system. While error message relating to a security feature are likely to result in concern and fear, Microsoft is at pains to reassure users that there is no need to panic.

The introduction of Wi-Fi 7 -- IEEE 802.11be to its friends -- marks a step forward in wireless speeds to cope with the five and 10 gigabit capabilities of fiber networks.

Of course your security needs to keep up with these speeds too and that's why Firewalla is launching its Gold Pro 10-gigabit smart firewall.

As cyberattacks continue to evolve so defenses need to change to keep up. In many cases that means adopting AI.

Enterprise networking and security company Cisco is the latest to embrace this with launch of Cisco AI Assistant for Security.

When CISOs think about cybersecurity for their companies, there are certain expectations. Password protection, firewalls, and continuously training employees on the latest phishing scams, to name a few. And to be sure, cyber risks like these are as relevant as ever. The persisting problem is, cybersecurity is like any defense contest: the burden (and therefore the disadvantage) is on the defender. You have to win every time, whereas an attacker only has to win once to cause major damage.

Frustratingly, cyber criminals have shown time and time again that they are actually quite gifted at creative approaches, thinking outside the box, and combining advanced tech with old school techniques. For instance, a suspicious-looking form letter email is easy to spot and delete. However, by purchasing even a small amount of personal data from the dark web, a smart criminal can craft a phishing email with just enough familiarity so that its target will most likely open it without hesitation. With enough patience and photoshopping, a malicious actor can send customers a message from their favorite store that leads them to a spoofed website solely created to steal their credit card information. Increasingly today, these attacks targeting customers are more prevalent.

Towards the end of last year we reviewed the Firewalla Gold Plus, a more powerful version of the plug-in network protection device aimed at professional and business users.

Of course the world of the internet doesn't stand still for long and with gigabit speeds becoming more widely available as full fiber services are rolled out, Firewalla is set to up its game again with the launch of the Gold SE.

Misconfigurations are often a source of security issues, especially when they relate to an organization's firewalls.

FireMon is launching a new, free firewall assessment tool that provides organizations with a comprehensive diagnostic report outlining the health of a firewall policy, complete with best practices and suggestions to improve their security posture.

Two years ago when we reviewed the Firewalla Blue we remarked on how tiny it was relative to the level of protection it offers.

The recently launched Gold Plus version is a much bigger and more serious piece of kit aimed at small businesses and professional home users. It offers the same simple, plug-in protection as the Blue but can be used in a number of other ways too.

Launched last year, Avast One aimed to offer a comprehensive protection suite with both free and paid for editions.

The company has now announced significant enhancements to the product, with new features designed to protect people from online scams, fraud, and other personal privacy threats.

Whether you regard your colleagues as Layer 8 "issues" in your own OSI stack, or as a human firewall which should be able to recognize and act on inbound threats, like everything else in organizations that execute well, getting your general employee population on-board with your information security goals is ultimately a matter of culture.

And the strongest security cultures are those where each and every employee fully understands that they are on the front lines. They are extended members, and the early warning system, for your core team in the security operations center (SOC).

Back in July 2021 we reported on the announcement of the Firewalla Purple network protection appliance. It was due for release in December so has been subject to some delays, but from today it's finally available to buy.

Like other Firewalla offerings it's a compact portable device that you can take anywhere to deliver enterprise-grade protection, guarding against cyberattacks and offering advanced insights into your network.

The zero-trust model is an enigmatic animal. Sometimes you think you already know and understand it, but you may end up realizing there’s still a lot to learn. This quandary can be exemplified by the use of firewalls to protect an organization’s networks and IT resources.

Traditional firewall software has already ceased to be useful in putting up meaningful security for organizations. The same goes for legacy firewall appliances. However, firewalls have evolved to provide more features and functions that address present-day threats.  As network security specialist Ruvi Kitov suggests, "firewalls are not going anywhere." They just evolve and add new features to address new needs.

Regular readers will recall that last year we reviewed the Firewalla, a little box that provides protection for your network.

We tested the Blue version that provides protection for networks up to 500Mbps in speed. Now the company is launching a new Purple version that works at gigabit speeds and has extra features too.