Firewalls are a truly legacy cybersecurity solution – so much so that the name has its origins in physical old-world security: these were steel doors meant to physically keep fires that started in one part of a ship’s hold from spreading into other compartments.
Today’s firewalls do the same with networks, putting digital barriers between network resources so that one exploit or breach doesn’t affect all the critical tools used by an organization. While this is effective when all resources are on the same “ship,” installing a firewall between different ships presents a challenge for security professionals.
To help IT efficiently create a firewall for traffic across network resources in many different cloud environments as well as on-premises, Perimeter 81 has launched its Firewall as a Service feature. The Perimeter 81 FWaaS is a cloud-based firewall which enables easy, centralized control of network traffic between sources and destinations on any network.
Firewall as a Service allows Perimeter 81 admins to easily create policies that apply to your Perimeter 81 network resources and that enforce traffic control in your network based on user groups, addresses, devices, servers, network addresses, ports and geolocation.
Using the new firewall feature, you can segment Layer 3 and Layer 4 access to specific user groups and identities, using network policy rules that provide granular control of how data flows in these layers.
You can use Firewall as a Service to create traffic filtering rules for accessing network objects that include IP addresses and services such as Telnet, HTTP, FTP, and RDP for comprehensive control of network traffic between every local and cloud resource in your network. For example, you can make a rule to deny access from the user group “Contractors” to your developers’ FTP server.
FWaaS works in tandem with two crucial security concepts — encrypted tunneling and custom access rules based on user identity. The users and groups to which firewall rules apply are easily set up for your network, and can be defined based on the qualifiers relevant to your organization’s security — OS, device type, role, location, and much more.
Firewall rules further strengthen and define the security posture of organizations that already take advantage of Perimeter 81’s other security features. Cloud firewall-enabled user-based access management combined with Perimeter 81 encrypted tunnels provides granular network control for your organization, so that you can design security with a scalpel, rather than with a hammer — enjoying more precise and autonomous control over your network.
Organizations that are not yet Perimeter 81 customers may recognize that managing their network policies based on IP addresses or service ports rather than on users no longer meets the needs of growing companies. Any organization must manage a network with multiple levels of trust, countless roles, and an ever-growing list of cloud resources and devices. This growing complexity requires an easy way to manage user- and role-based access as well as a top-down view of access, traffic, and activity.
At Perimeter 81 we continue to add new security and networking features for our customers. To learn more about Firewall as a Service and see exactly how it can help improve your network security, read our helpful knowledge base article, and stay tuned for more product updates coming very soon.
