4 trends shaping the next-generation firewall market

Enterprise technology is evolving at a break-neck pace, and one of the areas seeing the greatest transformation is the next-generation firewall (NGFW) market. Gone are the days of a single enterprise data center protected by firewalls only capable of basic packet inspection. NGFWs are converging networking and security to offer cutting-edge features powered by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) that can delve deeper into network traffic than ever before.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve and modern enterprise environments grow more complex, it’s critical for vendors and IT teams alike to keep the pulse of the NGFW industry. Here are four powerful trends to watch.

1. Internet as a corporate network (and the associated risks)

Enterprises now rely on the internet as a corporate network. Yet the internet is a fundamentally unreliable, opaque, and insecure medium. It’s impossible for a business to guarantee uptime, threats abound, and enterprise IT staff often have little visibility into how to resolve service issues.

While not much can be done about the lack of visibility or uptime, NGFWs are the first line of defense against internet-based attacks. They must continuously pull threat information from sources across the network to ensure they have the most up-to-date security information. Additionally, vendors are adding increasingly sophisticated network traffic analysis, including signature-based intrusion detection and application-specific packet inspection, to their NGFWs.

2. Enterprise WAN edges

Enterprises are shifting away from perimeter hub-and-spoke models, which creates a new Enterprise WAN edge, and branches that need cloud access aren’t always located where cable/DSL is available. The distribution of branches is also getting wider as people are working from home permanently and Internet of Things (IoT) devices are expanding across vertical markets and deployments.

Software Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) allow organizations to route traffic directly from branch locations/remote offices to trusted cloud applications and properly deploy security protocols across network edges. A growing number of NGFWs include SD-WAN capabilities, consolidating the number of devices needed at branch locations and allowing simple-to-deploy security across network edges. 

3. Increasingly treacherous threats

As networks have become more distributed and complex, the threat environment has become more sophisticated. From new advanced persistent cybercrime tactics to upgrading old-school botnets, cybercriminals continue to find more sophisticated ways to infiltrate networks.

Ransomware is showing no signs of slowing down thanks to the growing popularity of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) on the dark web. In a global ransomware survey conducted by Fortinet, 67% of organizations report suffering a ransomware attack. Even worse, almost half said they had been targeted more than once, and nearly one in six said they were attacked three or more times.

A converged approach to networking and security is the best way to address the ever-evolving threat landscape. It’s critical for NGFWs to integrate seamlessly with other security solutions within the network, including Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and inline sandboxes, to protect against emerging threats. Additionally, future NGFWs will lean heavily on AI and ML technology to predict advanced threats before they occur.

4. Rise of the hybrid mesh firewall

Some firewalls support only one area of IT, so organizations need separate cybersecurity solutions to manage corporate sites, public and private cloud environments, and remote workers. But using multiple products can make it difficult or even impossible to provide consistent protection across ecosystems. Unlike a traditional firewall, hybrid mesh firewall platforms allow IT teams to define and enforce policy controls across workloads, users, and locations, and this capability will only grow in importance as organizations contend with the complex, hybrid environments needed to support work-from-anywhere. When selecting NGFWs—whether for the cloud, on premises, or virtual machines—IT teams should ensure they can all communicate and integrate with each other seamlessly.

In 2020, the pandemic upended the industry and made work-from-anywhere a permanent fixture of the modern enterprise. Vendors and IT teams are still addressing the full scope of this shift and many of the trends listed above are a result of this shakeup.

At Fortinet, we take pride in keeping in sync with the cybersecurity industry and staying at the forefront of industry shifts. We’ll be keeping an eye on the trends in this article and tracking new issues that pop up as 2023 continues.

Fortinet FortiGate NGFWs not only provide industry-leading threat protection and decryption at scale with a custom ASIC architecture but also have features such as SD-WAN, Universal ZTNA, integration with SASE, and support for Hybrid Mesh Firewalls. Learn more about how FortiGate NGFWs provide deep visibility and security in a variety of form factors, including container firewalls, virtual firewalls, and appliances.