Cloud-Based Firewalls: Boosting Cybersecurity With Ease

No matter how it’s possible you’ll take care of customers’ data, privacy laws require you to guard critical information from prying eyes. 

Still, that’s easier said than done with rising cybersecurity attacks and malicious actors. In response to Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), 83% of information breaches involved external aspects.

In brief, it’s essential protect your small business from external attacks. 

While there are various ways to try this, your best choice is to stop shady traffic from entering in the primary place. 

And in the event you’re hosting your website or application on a cloud, that’s what a cloud-based firewall is for. 

Let’s see what a cloud-based firewall is, what it offers, and the right way to configure it properly. 

Cloud-based firewalls are software-based filters that allow or disallow the flow of content between your cloud infrastructure and the Web. 

Consider cloud-based firewalls as security guards who can differentiate between legitimate customers and thieves based on preset configurations. As an alternative of metal detectors to detect weapons, they use blocklists to limit traffic with negative signatures from entering the cloud.  

And, unlike traditional firewalls, cloud-based firewalls are based within the cloud, so that they protect your cloud content no matter location. 

While a cloud-based firewall is situated on the cloud, it performs its functions like that of a hardware firewall.

• Traffic monitoring — A cloud-based firewall separates the system from the Web, and all incoming traffic has to go through its gates to enter your cloud.
• Filter-based access — The firewall separates the great and bad content based on how the cloud provider configures the filters. Authorized content passes through, and unauthorized data stays outside.
• Restricted outbound traffic — Besides filtration of incoming traffic, cloud-based firewalls restrict outgoing traffic so only the permitted content leaves your network. For example, you must send needed API requests out but wouldn’t wish to send sensitive customer data outside the network. 

In brief, the fundamental working of the cloud-based firewall is similar to traditional firewalls. The differences appear only while you take a look at the 2 types at a macro level. 

So how do cloud-based firewalls compare with old-school physical firewall security guards? The reply typically will depend on your application. 

Unlike cloud-based firewalls that reside within the cloud, traditional firewalls are situated on the organization’s on-premises server. As well as, while cloud-based firewalls are all the time a software solution, traditional firewalls may consist of a software solution or a physical device.

Hardware specifications limit traditional hardware firewalls, and software firewalls depend on on-premises computing resources. So if a traffic spike occurs because of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, they will’t scale up to fulfill the resource demand. 

In contrast, cloud-based firewalls have the flexibleness of the cloud and might scale up and down as required. 

You’re also fully answerable for regular maintenance and updates of the normal firewall. Maintenance of cloud-based firewalls, then again, typically falls under the cloud provider’s responsibility. 

While cloud-based firewalls are implemented for cloud security, they provide several other additional advantages:

Scalability and the cloud go together like coffee and mornings. Unlike traditional firewalls, cloud-based firewalls can scale up and down in accordance with need without bandwidth limits. 

Since cloud-based firewalls don’t rely upon on-premises physical infrastructure, you may quickly increase the capability during peak traffic demands. 

Cloud-based firewalls are hosted on the cloud, so your network is protected globally no matter where the incoming traffic comes from. 

With worldwide servers and edge content delivery networks (CDNs), you may profit from this robust security solution without affecting the end-user experience. Actually, your users will experience lower load times and latency, depending on where they’re situated. 

While cloud-based firewalls allow you to create smaller application containers to your users worldwide, you don’t have to depend on their technical know-how to guard your network. As an alternative, you may manage all the things from a central interface. 

For example, you should use the cloud-based firewall dashboard to:

• Update security policies across all networks and locations.
• View and monitor all security events and potential threats.
• Apply security patches to the entire cloud network.

Nevertheless, letting employees access your secure system remotely means expanding your attack surface to malicious attackers. This is not excellent news in the event you’re a HIPAA-compliant business since you should keep sensitive data secure from prying eyes. 

Cloud-based firewalls solve this distant work issue by letting you implement solutions like content filtering and virtual private connections to assist distant employees access the system without exposing it to the skin.

Since 74% of information breaches involve human error, automatic updates are a fantastic advantage of cloud-based firewalls. 

Unlike on-premises firewalls, where your IT team has to use security fixes and vulnerability updates manually, cloud-based firewalls receive regular, automatic updates directly from the cloud provider. 

Cloud-based firewalls are powered by large security databases that help them make data-driven decisions against advanced threats in real time. 

For instance, if a cloud-based firewall senses an attack pattern on one side of the globe, it shares the knowledge with the remaining of the cloud infrastructure to enhance collective security against emerging threats. 

Since a cloud-based firewall is software-based, you may deploy it in almost no time. That means that you can apply security measures to your IT infrastructure in minutes as a substitute of waiting for the hardware firewalls to be shipped and configured. 

While every firewall on the cloud is a cloud-based firewall, there are different classes you should consider to higher protect your infrastructure:  

A public cloud firewall is a cloud-based firewall arrange by the general public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). 

A public cloud firewall typically creates security protection across the virtual machines and cloud storage and prevents unauthorized parties from accessing your hosted content.

While you have got a point of flexibility, most public cloud firewalls work with predefined configurations to maintain the general cloud environment stable and secure and aren’t tailored to your specific needs. 

A SaaS firewall, or firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS), is a cloud-based firewall. Organizations deploy these firewalls on their cloud infrastructure to filter moving traffic and discover threats inside it. 

SaaS firewalls protect your IT infrastructure on a subscription basis. As an alternative of manually configuring software-based firewalls on the VMs, you may depend on the firewall provider to handle all the things. 

Web application firewalls (WAFs) are cloud-based firewalls designed for filtering and blocking web-based attacks at the appliance level. They’re typically situated in front of web servers and apps since they assist filter HTTP and HTTP traffic. 

Website hosting providers commonly use WAFs as security measures against SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other common vulnerabilities of web applications like WordPress.

Next-generation firewalls (NGFW) are robust firewalls that mix traditional firewall functionalities with several advanced security measures.

For example, NGFWs offer:

• Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) — NGFWs monitor the network traffic for known attack signatures and patterns to stop malicious agents from reaching your sensitive data. 
• Deep packet inspection (DPI) — Next-generation firewalls perform deep packet inspections at the appliance layer to know the content and context of the network traffic. This lets NGFW implement a security policy based on the content of the info packets. 
• Support for virtual private networks (VPN) — Many NGFWs offer support for VPNs and enable you to allow secure access to distant employees without the chance of information breaches. 

While an NGFW may appear to be your best bet for robust security, it’s not all the time the optimal solution for each application. For example, a WAF beats NGFW for common web applications by providing cost-effective security with a simplified deployment. 

Listed below are the highest considerations when selecting a cloud-based firewall to your application:

• Security measures — Make sure the firewall provides robust protection against relevant cybersecurity threats. For example, in the event you own a SaaS application, search for DPI, application-aware filtering, threat intelligence, and DDoS protection.
• Performance — Evaluate how the firewall handles the traffic. Ensure it doesn’t affect user experience by increasing latency or response time.
• User interface — Assess if the firewall interface makes it easy to administer the access control policies and get real-time reports. If the dashboard is complicated, make sure the provider offers documentation and customer support to assist your IT team during onboarding.
• Compliance — If you should comply with PCI-DSS or HIPAA, make sure the tools and features needed to secure sensitive data per those security standards can be found.
• Redundancy and Failover — In case you’re inclining toward a SaaS firewall, review the firewall provider’s failsafe mechanisms to make sure your infrastructure security in case of accidents. 

Once you choose on a cloud-based firewall, you may make it your personal by applying custom security rules and regulations that fit your application. Nevertheless, you should follow certain best practices to make sure you profit from the firewall as a substitute of leaving the floodgates open for malware. 

To start out off on the suitable foot, establish a security policy for the cloud-based firewall that your IT team understands and agrees with. This manner, everyone coping with the firewall will know what’s allowed and disallowed and might work together to watch potential threats. 

For instance, consider listing source channels for traffic and the way much risk each carries. Consider plugging that port if a specific channel brings meager traffic but increases security risks. 

Approach configuration as if all the things is lava and there are a couple of secure spots. In other words, as a substitute of blocking specific malicious traffic, start by blocking all the things after which only allowing secure traffic. 

Since firewalls depend on preset configurations to separate secure and unsafe traffic, keep the safety rules up to this point.

Enable logging to gather security records of warnings and potential security breaches. Review them commonly to guard your system against ongoing threats. 

Segment the traffic into different security levels and limit access to hosted content based on those levels. This manner, even when malicious agents sneak through the bottom security level, they will’t touch the sensitive information stream. 

Actually, this security practice is required to comply with lots of the data security standards. For example, PCI-DSS requires you to create a buffer zone between the Web and cardholder data to only allow the needed traffic to go through, which isn’t possible and not using a firewall segmenting the incoming traffic. 

In case you go for the suitable firewall and manage it well, you may higher protect yourself against many of the common cyber threats that affect modern businesses. 

Still, there’s more to the safety equation than simply firewalls. 

Our cloud dedicated hosting solutions might help protect your network security. Our ServerSecure Advanced Security comes with features like a standard firewall, malware scanning, vulnerability assessments, and DDoS mitigation.