Today the Internet has become one of the indispensable forces of human life, and the pandemic has accelerated this growth by many folds by occupying the rightful place at the heart of our lives. The average person now connects to the vast expanse of the Internet at least a few times a day, drawn inexorably to its infinite possibilities.

Yet, a constant concern about cyber-attack threats lies within this intricate web of private, public, and hybrid networks where countless systems, electronic marvels, and AI devices converge. To shield ourselves and our digital infrastructure from these malevolent forces, we must harness the power of data security. The Firewall is one of the major components that help us as stalwart guardians.

What is Firewall?

A firewall is a security device that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic from a specific network and also filters data packets depending upon a set of rules configured as per the organization to prevent attacks. From the early days of the internet, we have been using different types of firewalls, which started with firewalls deployed on the host and gradually developed as exclusive devices which work for the whole network. To protect networks in an era where services are moving to the cloud Firewall as a Service comes into sight.

What is Firewall as a Service (FWaaS)?

FWaaS is a cloud-based firewall service that provides us with next-generation firewall features like segmentations, Intrusion Prevention Systems, VPN, sandboxing, malware protection, antispyware, and many others. In this, the organization does not require to obtain a hardware device and deploy it in any specific location. Organizations can deploy centralized firewall services for different locations of offices to secure their network. A third-party vendor helps us to maintain these firewalls. Due to Infrastructure-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, and other as-a-services, we have a big network created on the cloud, which is private, hybrid, or public. In addition to that, there is an increase in AI devices like thermal temperature checking and face recognition devices for authentication. Also, cloud storage devices create and upload bulk data on the cloud, which need to protect. FWaaS helps us to achieve this in a more effective way.

How FWaaS works?

FWaaS is a service that works between an organization’s network and the internet, which can be deployed in different ways.

• Firewall-as-a-service, which is provided by a third-party vendor where most of the access control of the firewall is with a third-party vendor. You can add, delete, and edit the firewall services to some extent.
• The second way is to deploy your own firewall to protect your network using could services. In this, you can design your own firewall as per requirement and add multiple next-generation features.

Firewall desires to create a safe, private network for users, even though users should be able to connect to public services and another network with less interruption. In a firewall, you will get protection at different OSI layers. A firewall not only does packet filtering depending on the rule but also prevents the network from threats like spoofing, malware, virus, and phishing. Provide service which will protect the network from Flood attacks like DOS/DDOS attacks. Terminate Unauthorized access. As shown in the figure below, FWaaS works as a shield for components like DNS, load balancers, Remote Devices, etc.

How Happiest Minds is helping customers using FWaaS?

Happiest Minds are working with numerous global clients and giving them effective services, which include providing support to client in planning and deployment of network infrastructure where security of network is also involved and, we are working for migration of network and security services. The following is one of the case studies where we used a firewall as a service for the client and got amazing results.

We are working with an award-winning, non-profit, integrated health system. The client has multiple offices across the globe, and, during the pandemic, they acquired new land, where they were planning to set up healthcare centers. Unlike any health care center, they are supposed to collect immense personal and medical data of enrolled patients. In old office premises, they had a physical firewall for network security. For new centers, we wanted to provide them with a solution that would be best for them.

Here we proposed they use a firewall as a service for network security. The motive to use FWaaS instead of Next Generation Firewall is as below:

• Centralize network security: Instead of deploying a location-specific physical firewall, a central firewall as a service is deployed.

How Client network security look with physical firewall:

After using FWaaS:

• Using Firewall as a Service, we were able to easily add or remove capacity and firewall features according to requirement.
• Easy to manage for engineers because user-friendly GUI is provided.
• Less manual power requirement as a small team was able to help achieve the result and manage it virtually.

Due to this this structure worked very well for them.

As seen above in the case study, Firewall as a Service has the upper hand in network security structure.

Advantages of FWaaS:

• Cost efficient: Organizations don’t need to invest money in hardware devices. They can deploy firewalls as per requirement. In case the network size is increased, new Firewall resource addition takes less time, and it is easily scalable. Let’s consider a situation in the office where you are thinking of increasing the number of users. In that case, in a normal situation, you must consider the throughput/capacity of the existing firewall. If it is not compatible, an organization needs to invest money in other devices not only that administration has to go through various document verification to get a suitable solution. But if you have FWaaS you can simply update the service provider about requirements, and you will get the best solution with less amount of money and time.
• Easily approachable: As FWaaS is managed centrally an authorized person can connect to the device and manage firewall services from one point. You can make changes on multiple firewalls without going to the location. You can deploy various changes at the same time. Like if you want to provide access to some service for only the manager of each branch, you can centrally update that policy and publish those changes which will have an impact on all branch managers.
• Less Vulnerable: No device is perfect attacker will find a way exploits it. When the device comes in the market after that also the Research and Development team working on the device, try to improve productivity and reduce its shortcoming, which results in updated OS versions and patches. In local devices, patch and OS update is done manually one by one. In FWaaS, this task takes place centrally, and most of the time, it is taken care of by a third-party vendor. These vendors keep an eye on released notes by official sites and update devices to their latest and more secure versions. Because of this, we get a less vulnerable network.
• Faster performance: As most of the services are moved to the internet and with a firewall in the same environment, traffic doesn’t need to go to the data center for filtration, which increases performance speed.

Challenges of FWaaS:

• Availability of skilled resources: Till now, organizations had their own group of security engineers who were managing firewall devices on the field and the setup was working well for them. FWaaS is a new term that demands some skills and experience to work and manage firewalls on the cloud. It will take time for engineers to learn these skills.
• Data Privacy: Organizations have sensitive and private data which need to be protected, also remote and network devices need to be protected. Business owners are wary about having security controls with the cloud-service vendors as third-party vendors provide services to multiple clients and sometimes, they may get access to private critical information.

Conclusion:

The usage of internet service and network infrastructure is changing rapidly, and so are types of firewalls and their structure. Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) is a centralized solution that works on cloud service terminology. It is a flexible solution that helps you to choose what is best for your network and update it according to your need. It will reduce your burden to manage local/physical appliances. The third-party vendor is always there to fulfill your requirement in an effective manner. Considering an advantage provided by FWaaS and its marketability, it is resulting in growth in the usage of FWaaS.

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