Managing firewalls used to be simple, back when you had a few physical appliances in a centralized data center. Today, you’re likely juggling physical firewalls at HQ and virtual next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) in public cloud environments. With that kind of sprawl, managing your firewalls without a unified strategy is inefficient and risky.

You already rely on NGFWs. The real question is: can you manage them all in a way that supports both security and business outcomes? Let’s explore why centralized firewall management is now essential for IT leaders and how tools like Palo Alto Networks and help bring order to the complexity.

Watch: Network Security Ultimate Test Drive With WEI & Palo Alto Networks

The State Of Firewall Management

If your teams manually update firewall rules across different environments, you’re not alone. Most enterprises still operate in silos, with separate teams handling cloud, on-prem, and remote access security. Some of the most common challenges from enterprise security leaders include:

• Policy duplication and drift across firewalls in different environments.
• Manual errors from repetitive rule creation or oversight during updates.
• Disjointed reporting makes it hard to correlate threats across users and workloads.

The data also supports these concerns: misconfigurations remain a leading cause of security breaches, and to help reduce the burden of managing complex environments. That’s why centralized management tools like Palo Alto Networks Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama are designed to manage diverse deployments from a single control point.

Centralized NGFW Management: The Strategic Advantage

Centralized control is essential if you’re managing physical firewalls in the data center, virtual firewalls in the cloud, and SASE solutions for remote workers. This unified strategy allows you to oversee your entire NGFW deployment effectively.

Centralized management platforms such as Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama simplify the management of Palo Alto Networks Firewall deployments across diverse environments, including on-premises, public cloud, and SASE architectures.

Here’s what you gain when you take a centralized approach:

1. Consistent policy enforcement

Instead of manually building and managing rules for each environment, centralized platforms allow your team to define policies once and apply them across all firewall deployments. Using templates and device groups, Panorama ensures that your firewall rules stay consistent, regardless of location.

Meanwhile, Strata Cloud Manager layers in intelligence by highlighting policy mismatches before they lead to vulnerabilities. This results in fewer errors, better policy intent preservation, and greater confidence in your NGFW posture.

2. Proactive detection through AIOps

Traditional tools wait until there’s a problem. Centralized platforms like Strata Cloud Manager proactively identify misconfigurations, performance degradation, and emerging threats, processing over . This allows it to surface 24,000 misconfigurations and 17,000 health issues monthly. With this data, your team gets predictive alerts that matter, including:

• Imminent firewall resource exhaustion (forecasted up to seven days ahead)
• Disabled protections like Credential Phishing Prevention
• Alert prioritization based on behavioral patterns, not static thresholds

These insights help your team stay ahead of disruption without being buried in false alarms.3. Unified oversight

Your infrastructure isn’t uniform, so why manage it with disconnected tools? With Panorama, you can control every NGFW from a single interface. That centralized view brings structure to what would otherwise be a fragmented security model. Your security team can:

• Apply consistent identity- and application-based access controls.
• Monitor containerized and cloud workloads without separate tools.
• Align SASE policies with on-prem standards for a complete NGFW strategy.

Working with a Palo Alto Networks partner like WEI ensures your deployment aligns with both technical and business priorities, streamlining integration and policy governance.

Watch: WEI Roundtable Cyber Focused On Warfare & Beyond

4. Faster incident response and root cause discovery

In the face of a threat or outage, you don’t have time to chase data across different systems. Strata Cloud Manager consolidates user behavior, app traffic, and threat telemetry into a unified dashboard, speeding up investigations and helping your team zero in on root causes quickly.

With support for third-party integrations like ServiceNow, your team can also:

• Generate tickets automatically as threats are identified
• Reduce false positives with intelligent alert scoring
• Deliver audit-ready reports that stand up to regulatory review

That kind of speed and precision is essential when you’re managing NGFWs at scale.5. Centralized logging and compliance-ready reporting

Sifting through siloed logs for audit prep or post-incident reviews can drain your resources. Panorama and Strata Cloud Manager, when paired with , aggregate log data across your entire NGFW environment. This unified logging approach allows you to:

• Search across deployments from a single interface
• Export customized reports for compliance or internal stakeholders
• Eliminate manual log correlation that slows investigations
  
  

WEI Podcast: Closing The Cyber Skills Gap

Making The Business Case To Your Executive Team

Centralizing how you manage firewalls is a tactical IT decision that supports broader business goals like risk reduction, workforce agility, and operational clarity. Here’s how a centralized approach delivers measurable value:

• Fewer missteps lead to security gaps, thanks to consistent rule enforcement and reduced manual work.
• Lower overhead costs, as your teams spend less time duplicating efforts and troubleshooting across environments.
• Faster response to business change, whether that’s onboarding new cloud services or supporting hybrid work.
• Stronger return on your firewall investments, with unified management across all form factors.

If your organization already relies on , centralization allows you to maximize what’s already in place. When you work with a reliable Palo Alto Networks partner such as WEI, you gain access to the support and strategy needed to align your security architecture with larger digital priorities.

Final Thoughts

Enterprise networks won’t get simpler, but your firewall management can. Centralized NGFW management gives you the visibility, consistency, and control you need to protect a complex infrastructure without adding new layers of complexity. Whether you start with Panorama or move toward the AI-driven insights of Strata Cloud Manager, the goal is the same: make your security operations more predictable, unified, and more responsive to real threats.

WEI partners with large enterprises to design, implement, and optimize security architecture using Palo Alto Networks’ best-in-class tools. As a trusted Palo Alto Networks partner, we help global organizations take control of their NGFW environments, improving outcomes without increasing workload. Schedule a consultation today to discover how centralized NGFW management and our team of experts can transform your firewall strategy.

Next Steps: Ready to take control of your network security?  shows how centralized management of Palo Alto Networks NGFWs empowers IT leaders to cut risk, tighten security, and boost performance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Explore the strengths of Panorama and Strata Cloud Manager, and see how organizations are achieving 50% fewer breaches and 229% ROI—insights you can act on today to modernize your security strategy. 

The post Rethinking NGFW Management: Why Centralization Matters More Than Ever appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

IT leaders steering their IT infrastructure and the personnel that support it understand that cyberattacks have become more frequent and targeted, employing automation, AI-driven techniques, and zero-day vulnerabilities. As your organization expands across cloud, hybrid, and remote environments, the challenge of securing digital infrastructure while maintaining business operations becomes a constant balancing act. Enterprises must match their pace with equally innovative solutions.

One impactful solution lies in embracing machine learning (ML) and AI-driven strategies to detect and counteract threats before they breach the network. In this blog article, we explore how a proactive, intelligent security strategy can help you stay ahead. This strategy can be powered by a next-generation firewall (NGFW) with ML capabilities to enable real-time analysis, automated responses, and centralized security management across your entire IT estate.

IT Leaders Are Choosing AI-Driven Firewalls

As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, IT leaders need security solutions that stay ahead of attacks and not just react to them. This growing demand has led to the increased adoption of AI-driven firewalls, next-generation solutions that provide a proactive defense. By continuously adapting to evolving threats, these firewalls deliver unified protection across diverse environments, including on-premises, cloud, and SaaS.

AI-driven firewalls stand out with their cutting-edge features, redefining network security standards with capabilities such as:

• Proactive threat prevention: AI-driven firewalls detect and neutralize threats before they penetrate your network. Unlike traditional firewalls bound by static rule sets, these intelligent systems evolve dynamically, adapting in real time to emerging attack patterns. This forward-looking strategy pairs effortlessly with its capacity to deliver consistent security across diverse environments.
• Comprehensive coverage: Modern IT environments span multiple platforms, including on-premises data centers, cloud services, and SaaS applications. AI-driven firewalls provide seamless security across all of these, ensuring consistent protection regardless of where data and workloads reside.
• Reduced manual effort: Manual security policy management and threat response can consume significant resources and lead to errors. AI-driven firewalls automate routine tasks, freeing up IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than constantly adjusting security settings.
• Enhanced visibility and control: AI-powered analytics provide deep insights into network traffic, helping security teams identify anomalies and potential risks faster. This level of visibility allows for more precise threat mitigation and policy enforcement.
• Industry recognition and reliability: AI-driven firewalls have consistently been recognized for their effectiveness, earning top placements in industry reports and independent evaluations. Their proven track record makes them a trusted choice for enterprises worldwide.

As cyber threats evolve, so must your security strategies. AI-driven firewalls offer a smarter way to protect modern IT environments, helping businesses stay secure without adding complication. While these firewalls provide cutting-edge protection, centralizing management is key to unlocking their full potential.

The Power Of Centralized Firewall Management

With enterprises juggling multi-cloud, hybrid, and remote work environments, managing security can quickly spiral out of control through a fragmented approach. A centralized platform ensures consistent policies and enhanced control across the board.

This increases the risk of:

• Inconsistent security policies that create vulnerabilities across locations.
• Limited visibility into threats across cloud and on-prem environments.
• Slow response times due to disjointed security operations.

Palo Alto Networks addresses these challenges with two main management platforms:

• : This cloud-based platform provides a unified view of all firewall deployments, offering real-time insights, analytics, and policy enforcement.
• : A powerful on-premises solution that allows IT teams to centrally manage firewall configurations, threat intelligence, and security policies across multiple locations.

By collaborating with a trusted Palo Alto Networks partner, enterprises can integrate these advanced tools to unify hardware, virtual, and SASE firewalls under a single management framework. These help enterprises build stronger defenses by enforcing consistent policies and reducing misconfigurations across all deployments.

Watch: Improving Your Security With ML-Powered NGFW

Machine Learning-Powered Threat Prevention

Static, signature-based detection methods – common in traditional security solutions – leave critical gaps in protection. A more adaptive and intelligent approach uses ML-powered threat prevention to stop attacks before they infiltrate your network.

Palo Alto Networks’ Advanced Threat Prevention integrates machine learning for real-time defense, offering:

• Phishing and malware protection: AI-driven analysis instantly blocks evasive and unknown attacks.
• Rapid threat intelligence: Automated intelligence provides immediate protection against emerging risks.
• IoT and device security: Continuous detection and safeguarding of unmanaged endpoints help prevent vulnerabilities.

This capability blocks 60% more zero-day attacks than traditional intrusion prevention systems (IPS) while Advanced URL Filtering prevents 40% more web-based threats.

AIOps: Proactive Security Operations

Securing an enterprise network isn’t just about blocking threats; it’s about continuous optimization and proactive risk management. AIOps optimizes firewall security by predicting risks, analyzing patterns, and automating resolutions before threats occur.

With AIOps, security teams can:

• Predict and Prevent FailuresAIOps continuously monitors firewall performance, detects anomalies, and forecasts failures before they disrupt operations. It analyzes historical data and real-time metrics to predict firewall health issues such as capacity overloads, performance degradation, or misconfigurations, up to seven days in advance. By detecting trends in network traffic, AIOps helps security teams anticipate utilization spikes and recommend proactive capacity adjustments. This predictive capability reduces the risk of downtime, ensuring consistent network security and performance.
• Optimize Configurations AutomaticallyAIOps assesses firewall configurations against industry best practices and real-time security needs. It detects misconfigured policies, identifies unused rules, and ensures that settings align with optimal security postures. By analyzing over 49 billion telemetry metrics across 60,000 firewalls each month, AIOps proactively shares 24,000 misconfiguration alerts and 17,000 firewall health issue notifications, helping administrators resolve potential vulnerabilities before they impact security. The system also automates rule validation, reducing manual workloads and minimizing configuration errors that could expose networks to threats.
• Resolve Misconfigurations Before They Create VulnerabilitiesAIOps detects and corrects misconfigurations that could expose the network to attacks. For example, if an administrator forgets to enable credential phishing prevention (CPP) in a URL filtering profile, AIOps alerts them immediately and provides remediation steps. This proactive correction prevents users from submitting credentials to phishing sites, reducing the risk of data breaches. Similarly, if a decryption policy is missing, AIOps identifies the issue and recommends corrective action, ensuring the firewall blocks malware from compromised websites before it can infiltrate the network.

By shifting from reactive to proactive security operations, teams can focus on strategic initiatives instead of firefighting network issues.

Flexible Deployment Options For Every Environment

Enterprise security isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Your firewall needs to integrate smoothly with your existing infrastructure while also supporting future growth. Palo Alto Networks sets the standard in enterprise security with AI-driven, proactive protection across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments. As a recognized Leader in , it delivers the advanced security businesses need to stay ahead of evolving threats.

To meet the diverse needs of enterprises, Palo Alto Networks offers multiple deployment models:

• PA-Series – Physical firewalls built for large-scale, high-performance environments.
• VM-Series – Virtual firewalls designed to secure workloads across AWS, Azure, and VMware.
• CN-Series – Containerized security tailored for Kubernetes-based applications.

With these flexible options, a Palo Alto Networks partner can guide your business in selecting the right solution for your specific infrastructure to ensure consistent security across all environments.

Final Thoughts

Your security strategy must align with today’s evolving cyber threats. To stay ahead, organizations need ML-powered security, centralized firewall management, and AI-driven automation.

WEI, a reputable Palo Alto Networks partner, specializes in developing scalable firewall solutions that meet your specific business needs. can help you implement a robust security architecture for today and the future – whether you need hardware firewalls for on-site protection, virtual firewalls for cloud environments, or a comprehensive SASE solution to protect your remote workforce. Connect with our team today to learn how AI-powered firewall solutions can protect your organization.

Next Steps: Ready to take control of your network security? shows how centralized management of Palo Alto Networks NGFWs empowers IT leaders to cut risk, tighten security, and boost performance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Explore the strengths of Panorama and Strata Cloud Manager, and see how organizations are achieving 50% fewer breaches and 229% ROI, insights you can act on today to modernize your security strategy. 

The post Looking for Stronger Cyber Defense? NGFW And Smarter Management Tools Can Help appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Today, enterprise networking and security face a growing challenge stemming from an ever-expanding attack surface and company perimeter (every user and every application is a company perimeter). The front line is everywhere! With the majority of employees working off site, and the majority your enterprise data is off site in the cloud/in SaaS applications etc., each of these factors produce data leaks, resulting in a “perfect storm” for data security.

Our collective goal is to keep data and customers secure. That said, attackers know there is an “attack surface explosion” today. Consequently, zero-day malware (unknown malware) has also exploded in volume. In 2019, companies like mitigated two billion pieces of zero-day malware daily. Two years later in calendar Q2 2022, that figure jumped to 224 billion daily (also fully mitigated).

Companies have more borders and perimeters than what meets the eye. There are:

• Cloud-based SaaS applications containing your internal data and intellectual property.
• Increasingly more mobile users globally.
• Headquarters, data centers and branches with legacy Internet and WAN edge appliances.
• Networking and security point products (one firewall stack, one routing layer, one decryption appliance, one IPS appliance, one proxy service, one URL filtering appliance, etc.), all managed separately, none of them correlating threat intel with each other in real time. All are either becoming or are completely obsolete by the minute.

WEI Workshop: How SASE Will Transform Your Network & Security

All of these items render the legacy networking and security architectures and solutions more and more obsolete in record time, causing enterprises to react versus being more proactive to fill security gaps.

The future of enterprise networking and security depends on how well the features are delivered. Features must excel in a way that is real time, automated/cloud-delivered, reliable, scalable, and flexible versus solving networking and security issues with point products (each one with its own specific targeted use case). When deploying point products, they can be complicated by themselves and complex to manage many of them simultaneously.

What replaces the old ways of doing things? SASE! An acronym which stands for Secure Access Service Edge, SASE is the convergence of networking and security, which is why people in the industry call SASE “Networking 2.0”.

Watch: WEI Cyber Warfare & Beyond Roundtable Discussion

, “Secure access service edge (SASE) delivers converged network and security as a service capabilities, including SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, NGFW and zero trust network access (ZTNA). SASE supports branch office, remote worker, and on-premises secure access use cases. SASE is primarily delivered as a service and enables zero trust access based on the identity of the device or entity, combined with real-time context and security and compliance policies.”

Gartner identifies the key components of SASE, which are:

1. SD-WAN: Flexibly optimize WAN performance across several branches and data centers.
2. Security as a Service: Includes Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), and SaaS Security.
3. Firewall as a Service (FWaaS)
4. IAM (Identity and Access Management): Authentication and authorization so that only legitimate users and devices can access internal data resources.
5. Data Loss/Leak Prevention: Prevent sensitive data from being leaked or improperly accessed.
6. ZTNA 2.0: All security services are built on the pillars of ZTNA 2.0.

Gartner also specifies that all of these components are managed easily, via unified management/next-gen security/scalable performance for remote work/cloud adoption/branch connectivity requirements.

SASE is a single “as a service” subscription-based product, combining the WAN (Wide Area Network) edge device functionality (on prem SD-WAN edge devices, bandwidth aggregation, visibility into traffic, guaranteed SLA for traffic, WAN optimization, remote branch segmentation, etc.) with next-gen L3-L7 “security as a service” (Firewall as a Service, SWG, URL Filtering, Client VPN, remote branch networking, Advanced Threat Prevention powered by AI, CASB and sometimes Explicit Proxy functionality).

SASE is cloud delivered and globally deployed, meaning your service, with all the same capabilities, is available globally, is self-healing, scalable, and elastic. SASE is designed to handle more users and more capacity automatically, eliminating backhauling of traffic and users to one HQ, data center, or branch hub, as opposed to point product appliances in one or two specific places (which the admin also must manage and maintain). These point products can be prone to oversubscription. SASE is built on the architecture/pillars of ZTNA 2.0, which is also simple to deploy, manage, and is globally available. This means the flexible service is always close to the user and branch, is simple to configure, and decreases latency (users to applications, users to data centers, users to branches, etc.).

Let’s Also keep In Mind What SASE Is NOT:

It is not “just” an SD-WAN, not “just” a VPN and not “just” a traditional firewall at one or many locations.

• It is not an SD-WAN deployed, then an SSE (secure service edge or security as a service) deployed, and the two solutions either do not interoperate with each other or are not configured to interoperate with each other (like two ships passing in the night or two point solutions).
• It is not traditional hardware, a “castle and moat” network perimeter protection strategy, and does not perform daisy-chaining for on-prem point security solutions to form an “offensive line” of security.
• It is not a series of on-prem “boxes” forming a full mesh over a public or private WAN.
• It is not a creatively packaged telco bundle.
• It is not rigid, stagnant, complicated, or limited (visibility, changes)
• It is not simply cloud delivered SSE deployed without SD-WAN at the customer WAN edge. There are leaders in the SSE space, but a company cannot be a leader in the SASE space without delivering a “secure service edge” and SD-WAN, according to Gartner.
• It is not a one-size-fits-all total replacement for all security solutions for every single enterprise. Most companies could really use a SASE solution, while other companies do not have a fit or a need for it today. All of that is okay!

It helps to think of SASE as broken up into two layers, similar to how we’ve used the OSI model to make sense of networking in the past:

• The “Secure Access” Layer: How users and remote sites connect to the SASE service.
• The “Service Edge” Layer: Once the users and remote sites are connected to the SASE service, how do they route to each other and how is data secured, especially against known and unknown malware as well as data loss prevention, as data moves from site to site or to the Internet?

Below is a user-friendly representation of this:

Despite the SASE “as a service” product, which a customer might be using, the general idea for most SASE Service vendors is that users (connecting via VPN clients, clientless VPN, SDP (software defined perimeter) or Explicit Proxy if the vendor offers this) and branches (via IPSEC capable devices such as firewalls/routers/SD-WAN edge devices) connect to or “securely access” the nearest SASE Service “POP” (point of presence, whether this is a physical POP or a POP within a public cloud like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP)), wherever they happen to be located globally.

Once connected, they all receive the same next-gen security, “5 9’s uptime” availability of the service, and service capacity-globally. The admin only needs to worry about the configuration of the same policies for every user and every branch (versus managing many products, upgrades of equipment, worrying about scalability, maintaining hardware, power, cooling, etc.). This is the “Secure Access Layer”.

Once connected, the user and branch are integrated with the SASE service, which is inline with all data traversal, also providing location independent, globally deployed and distributed/centrally managed and simple/low latency/scalable and elastic/flexible cloud hosted “next-gen” ZTNA 2.0 focused security features (while also mitigating known and unknown malware) such as:

• Secure Web Gateway (SWG)
• URL Filtering to prevent users from going to unsafe web sites
• Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
• Next-Gen Firewall (NGFW), which includes flow state tracking, packet inspection to detect malicious content within packet payloads/IPS (signature-based detection, anomaly-based detection, monitoring network traffic and blocks/reset connections containing malicious content and threats)/anti-virus/deep packet inspection/optimal routing/data and packet filtering/malware prevention/network access control to block unauthorized entities from accessing data/secure remote access (client VPN, clientless VPN, explicit proxy in some products)/DNS Security and Phishing Prevention to prevent unsafe domains and prevent users from clicking unsafe links/encryption of data/TLS decryption to safely exchange sensitive data across a network and, lastly, Digital Experience Management/Monitoring (DEM) to gain visibility into user application experience/latency/jitter/delay/packet loss.

Once the user and branch are connected to the SASE service, they have pervasive, location independent, globally deployed and distributed/security as a Service with real-time intelligence to detect anomalous flow and protection for all traffic against known and unknown threats and vulnerabilities at line speed. This is possible within scalable/centrally managed and simple/low latency/scalable and elastic features. This is the “Security as a Service” layer.

In short, SASE is a cloud delivered networking and security as a service, removing complexity and simplifying networking and security, all in one “as a service” globally available product, based on the pillars of ZTNA 2.0. It is taking your network from technologies that worked well in the 1990’s, the 2000’s, the 2010’s and earlier in the 2020’s, then systematically transforming your WAN edge and security, to arrive at the goal of arriving at and keeping your network security built within the ZTNA 2.0 framework.

What is ZTNA 2.0?

Let’s now deep dive into ZTNA, which is a framework for security, not a product. If we boil ZTNA down to one phrase, it is Zero Trust with NO Exceptions.

If we look at client VPN and site-to-site branch connectivity prior to SASE, we typically could not enforce any secure granularity as to which people or networks could access which applications and then what they could do with applications. There was virtually no data inspection. Users and attackers had free access, data could leak out, there could be exploit attempts that we were unaware of, etc. Attackers had free access if they were on your network!

Traditional networks and VPNs were designed to grant full network access, without security for the most part, while most resources were on-prem. This caused many security issues such as:

• Uninhibited Access: You need strict access controls while classifying applications. You don’t want too much access, especially for applications that use dynamic ports or IP addresses.
• Allowed And Ignored Access: Once access to an application is granted, that communication is then trusted forever. You don’t want to assume that the user and the application will always behave in a trustworthy manner. This is a complete handoff of a connection with no more traffic inspection happening. Now, there’s no way to fend off known or unknown attacks
• Too Little Security: Security for all applications, including applications using dynamic ports like voice and video applications, SaaS applications have been completely overlooked. What about server-initiated applications like HelpDesk and patching systems?

Legacy network architectures completely ignored strict access control and, as a result, most people and corporations still have little to no visibility or control over data. Legacy network architectures fall prey to security issues when it comes time for legacy VPN/SWG replacement, SaaS Security and even with branch transformation, only to discover it doesn’t live up to their needs/expectations.

Why should you care about this and why is this important? Work is no longer a place we go, but an activity we perform despite our location. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, many businesses scrambled to scale their client and site-to-site VPN infrastructure.

So, the ideal situation would be to perform strict authentication, but also restrict which users can access which applications, continuously inspect traffic inline. So, enter ZTNA 2.0!

Modern networks require next-gen security. SASE is a solution which delivers network access and security based on the five pillars of ZTNA 2.0, which are:

• Least Privilege Access: Enabling precise access control at the application and sub-application levels, independent of things like IP and port numbers. Continuously evaluated “Trust”/MFA Integration/Users connect to resources through the SASE Service/session is authenticated/Identify applications users require access to/Secure Application access granted per user or by group (example being security by user(s) accessing which application(s) via posture-assessed trusted device.)
• Continuous Trust Verification: Once access to an application is granted, trust is continually assessed based on changes in device posture during the life of the connection, user behavior and application behavior. An example is continual device posture checks to continually assess any changes in endpoint posture, enforce authorization, ensuring proper user and application behavior, blocking inappropriate user, application, or traffic behavior
• Continuous Security Inspection: Providing deep and ongoing inspection of all traffic, even for allowed connections, to prevent all threats including zero-day threats and block inappropriate application behavior. What if, during an application connection data starts flowing to some unknown destination? An example is if the adversary takes over a connection or was there all the time, the SASE Service will inspect the connections for misbehavior, see exploits, vulnerabilities and stop code executions. This is performed all in real time, whether the malware was previously known or is a true “zero day” unknown piece of malware code or campaign, because anomaly and threat prevention (depending on SASE vendor implementations) should use AI, deep learning and machine learning to stop threats in real time to out-pace the attackers.
• Protection of All Data: Prevent data loss and loss of your intellectual property! It is your data. Take control of it! The SASE Service takes control of data across all applications in the enterprise, including private applications and SaaS applications, all with a single DLP policy.
• Security for All Applications: Safeguarding all applications (not just web-based or DNS based applications) used across the enterprise, including modern cloud-native applications, legacy private applications and SaaS applications. This includes applications using dynamic ports and applications that leverage server-initiated connections.

What do all 5 pillars of ZTNA have in common?

• Trust is a vulnerability. Shift your mindset!
• These five key capabilities overcome the limitations of ZTNA 1.0 solutions especially today when work is an activity rather than a destination, the security needs to be centered around the user and the applications in today’s environment of hybrid businesses with hybrid workforces and the volume of attacks are increasing daily.
• The core of ZTNA is identity and continuous inline inspection and prevention of known and unknown zero-day malware controlling user access. Continuously inspecting traffic.
• If you’re not answering all of these questions, you might not be using a product that does true ZTNA.

Why Do You Need SASE?

To mitigate the aforementioned attack surface explosion, you need flexible, consistent security as a service everywhere, wherever your company is, wherever your employees are, to do one thing: transform your network and security while keeping your data secure. This security as a service also needs to be:

• Inline with all of your data traversing it
• Cost effective
• Quick and easy to deploy and administer
• Must be one service and one environment everywhere globally with elastic hyper-redundant scale with “5 9’s uptime”
• No unnecessary latency due to backhauling data from across the globe to a corporate headquarters
• All of this functionality in one cloud delivered service

The SASE service needs to mitigate zero-day malware natively using mechanisms such as AI/machine learning/deep learning. It needs to replace legacy site to site and client VPN solutions that were implemented years ago. It needs to include and support SD-WAN. It needs to be a Firewall as a service, SWG, CASB, provide security for public and private SaaS applications, potentially be an explicit proxy (vendor dependent), provide deep visibility into all data traversing this SASE service, needs to perform SSL Decryption at scale, all without oversubscription of resources. It needs to be one unified product with security efficacy and security without compromise built upon the 5 pillars of ZTNA 2.0.

Let’s dive into the details of SASE features:

• Ask yourself: Does my organization have consistent security posture everywhere? Or inconsistent security throughout the network? Which product is the weakest link? Can you apply the same security policies throughout the enterprise? Security needs to be consistent throughout any organization. Can my on-prem security product adjust quickly to new unknown threats, without downtime, without having to patch multiple appliances? How many resources do you currently invest (in appliances, Op-Ex, man-hours etc.) in maintaining your current on-prem security?
• One cloud-delivered converged product with one unified console for consistent next-gen security and WAN edge networking versus a “conga line” of multiple point products with multiple consoles. The multiple products are all managed separately with the goal of plugging specific holes, via separate policies and are prone to human error with inconsistent policy creation. None of these products natively interoperate or coordinate threat IOC’s and intel, all of which need to be maintained. Hardware, software patching, power, and cooling all need more admins and more resources, making it difficult to manage and troubleshoot.
• Why cloud-native and cloud-delivered? Customers need a simple/powerful//highly available/scalable/resilient/elastic/reliable/low maintenance (customer only has to maintain configuration!), global (geographically dispersed, no need to worry about placing appliances in certain locations) product to deliver ZTNA 2.0 via the same policies to all users and branches everywhere globally. This also includes to any application by one product being inline for all traffic globally and not bound to one location or capacity strained, with cloud-delivered next-gen security while cutting costs (sun-setting expensive provider based WAN links like MPLS, etc.). Wholistic, scalable, automated, simplicity, reliable, flexible, resilient, global security delivered to all “edges” to reduce the attack surface!
• The SASE product needs to support all SASE features natively, including Security as a Service and SD-WAN, across a global backbone.
• The SASE product must be deployed globally, to extend all features to all users and branches everywhere in the world, eliminate backhauling of traffic to regional corporate hubs while also being able to optimize WAN and Internet traffic.
• SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, Firewall as a Service, Threat Prevention (AntiVirus, Anti-Spyware, DNS Security, URL Filtering, sandboxing etc.), security for SaaS applications (with DLP), encryption/decryption, visibility of all traffic, in one service based on the pillars of ZTNA 2.0.
• Secure mobile user connectivity
• Secure remote branch connectivity
• VPN replacement (mobile user client VPN, branch to branch VPN, branch to data center VPN)
• Remote Browser Isolation, aka secure enterprise web browsing (vendor dependent)
• User edge/branch edge/data center edge/public and private SaaS] application edge policy converged in one unified architecture.
• A single pane of glass, via one console to manage all with one single unified policy for all, with simplicity!
• Deep traffic visibility (with digital experience monitoring or “DEM”), analytics, and reporting!
• SASE is business enablement. All data is seen and processed, the product is always on everywhere for everyone for everything wherever they are, security without compromise, all with simplicity! Work remotely without compromising on security and performance!

Contact the WEI cybersecurity team to learn more about SASE and why it could make sense for your business operations.

Next steps: WEI’s recent webinar focused on Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Ben Nicholson reviews Prisma Cloud’s capabilities in attack path analysis, identifying the source of risk, attack surface management, and much more. View the full webinar below!

Webinar: Cloud App Protection Using Code To Cloud Intelligence With Prisma Cloud

The post SASE: What is it? Why is it Needed? appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

This is the final installment of a two-part series dissecting the Left of Bang strategy and mindset and how it applies to modern cybersecurity practices. Click here to read part one. Left of bang is a proactive cybersecurity approach that strengthens incident detection and response by identifying and addressing threats before they impact the organization.

The risk of a cyberattack is a growing concern for organizations, and with an event occurring every 39 seconds, chief information security officers (CISOs) are taking it seriously. Left-of-bang technologies help organizations proactively identify cyber threats to prevent attacks and better manage risk. With the organization’s operational integrity, financial stability and brand at stake, cyber leaders are prioritizing cybersecurity, making it an essential part of their business strategies, rather than a nice-to-have, add-on service.

However, moving cybersecurity left of bang can be difficult for organizations that lack the on-staff expertise to recognize cybersecurity vulnerabilities. A knowledgeable value-added reseller like WEI can help organizations move cybersecurity left of bang and integrate the technologies that address their cybersecurity weaknesses and industry- and business-specific needs.

The Value of Left of Bang Technologies

These solutions are designed to help minimize risk and exposure to prevent attacks before they impact the organization. The analytics and automation built into these tools can help organizations speed threat detection and response, better manage their internal resources and address the constantly changing threat landscape.

Improving Mitigation Speed

Armed with powerful analytics, left-of-bang technologies constantly scan the IT environment for threats, using automated responses to quickly remediate issues. These advanced capabilities help organizations lower the mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) to an attack. Organizations use these metrics to measure their cybersecurity progress.

Easing the IT Skills Shortage

Analytics and automation also minimize the strain of the IT skills shortage. Many organizations are bringing their outsourced managed detection and response (MDR) initiatives back in house, putting greater expectations on their internal teams. By automating detection and response, such technologies allow organizations to better utilize their IT resources.

Keeping Pace with Evolving Threats

Bad actors continuously evolve their attack tactics, and organizations need to keep up. Solutions focused on left-of-bang combine analytics and the latest threat intelligence to detect new threats and network anomalies that may indicate an attack. User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) technology help organizations recognize behavioral anomalies, such as individuals accessing systems or data outside their normal scope of work or downloading data to an external device, to address a potential issue early.

A Technologies that Assess the IT Environment

An effective cyber strategy begins with situational awareness. This is achieved through asset management, vulnerability management, and penetration testing or red teaming.

Asset Management. Asset management technologies provide visibility into an organization’s IT environment, including all endpoint devices, users, software and cloud services. By inventorying all cyber-enabled assets, organizations have a clear picture of what needs to be monitored and protected. The environment is continually reviewed as new assets are introduced and existing assets are changed and decommissioned.

Vulnerability Management. Vulnerability management technology helps organizations identify, assess and address security weaknesses and prioritize remediation efforts to better secure IT assets.

Penetration Testing and Red Teaming. Penetration testing and red teaming both stage an ethical attack on an IT environment to identify gaps that provide access to bad actors; however, their approaches are different. Red teaming more closely simulates a real-world attack. The exercise is executed over several weeks without the organization’s knowledge. During this time, the red team looks for weaknesses, attempting to penetrate as far into the network as possible. With penetration testing, the organization is aware that an attack with a pre-determined scope will occur during an agreed-upon timeframe.

Technologies that Prevent an Attack

The goal here is to stop an attack from occurring. Two of the most common prevention technologies are next-generation firewalls (NFGW) and endpoint security.

NGFW. Traditional firewalls block potential threats by monitoring and filtering network traffic according to predefined parameters. NGFWs introduce additional capabilities to improve decision-making on traffic flow and defend against modern cyber threats.

Endpoint Security. Every endpoint device provides a potential access point for an attack. To block potential threats, endpoint security technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assess incoming data against an ever-expanding database of threats.

Proper Deployment of Cyber Solutions. Simply installing left-of-bang technology is not enough. Organizations need to ensure the technology utilizes the right settings to fortify their environments. This may include having proper policies configured and set to block, or up to date versions of products that introduce the latest prevention capabilities.

Integrating Right-of-bang Solutions for a Comprehensive Strategy

While left of bang is ideal to prevent attacks, every organization should have a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that includes right-of-bang technologies as well. These technologies support event detection and response as well as recovery efforts to restore the IT environment and any lost data. By addressing threats across all five cyber domains, assessment, prevention, detection, response and recovery, organizations align their strategies with the (NIST) cybersecurity framework for a powerful cyber defense solution.

Building a dynamic cybersecurity strategy that prioritizes left of bang while integrating right of bang can be challenging, especially for organizations without the necessary resources. WEI’s experienced cybersecurity engineers can help organizations shift their cybersecurity strategy left of bang and deliver additional value including:

Demonstrating ROI

While CISOs understand the value of left-of-bang solutions, business leaders may not recognize the benefits until it is too late. WEI guides CISOs to build the business case for a left-of-bang strategy to help achieve executive buy-in.

Offering Experience in the Latest Cybersecurity Solutions

The cyber landscape is complex and continually evolving, making it difficult for organizations to keep up. Every year, WEI helps organizations establish and continually evolve a cybersecurity plan that:

• Identifies cybersecurity weaknesses.
• Moves cybersecurity left of bang for better visibility of the threat landscape.
• Manages the ever-changing and increasingly sophisticated cyberattack landscape.
• Integrates tools to simplify and speed cyber threat management.

Ensuring Cybersecurity Products Work Together Seamlessly

An effective cybersecurity strategy integrates multiple products to address threats across the full attack continuum. Ensuring these products work together effectively can be complex, especially when organizations add new solutions over time. WEI can help ensure cybersecurity technologies are properly deployed and follow best practices to effectively protect the IT environment and business operations.

Meeting Specific Cybersecurity Requirements

Every company’s cybersecurity philosophy, risk tolerance, budget and journey are different. WEI guides companies to recognize and address their business- and industry-specific risks by assessing the criticality of confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA). For example, financial services and healthcare organizations place a heightened focus on data confidentiality and integrity because they handle highly sensitive data and have strict compliance requirements around data security. Availability is also critical to these organizations as downtime can negatively impact earnings and patient care. Other industries are better suited to tolerate data loss, making confidentiality and integrity less critical.

Embracing Left of Bang for a More Secure Future

A left-of-bang approach is a powerful investment in a company’s cyber posture and operational integrity. WEI can help your organization adopt this proactive approach to head off an attack before it impacts the business. Ready to improve your cyber defenses? WEI is here to help. Contact us here.

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Effective Security

Nearly three-quarters of network traffic is now encrypted through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) technology. However, cyberattacks often hide in SSL/TLS traffic. Studies estimate that up to 50% of attacks come from encrypted traffic. An effective NGFW thoroughly inspects encrypted traffic for malware and other threats. Your firewall solution should also provide end-to-end security throughout the network. Many NGFW tools and features already exist as standalone point products. While all of these products work well on their own, they are not designed to work together. An NGFW combines these separate solutions into an integrated system spanning the entire network. With network-wide security architecture, separate locations can share threat intelligence, resulting in fast, automated protection throughout the enterprise.

Proven Speed and Performance

While security is the primary goal of an NGFW, it should not come at the expense of network performance and speed. Modern enterprises need an NGFW that can keep up with their network traffic. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to verify the performance claims of NGFW vendors. Organizations should look for a firewall solution that has been tested by a reliable third-party. Determine what throughput speeds your business needs and choose an that has been proven to meet or exceed those speeds. A high-performing NGFW should be capable of effectively inspecting encrypted traffic without impeding network performance. Scalability is also a vital performance standard. Your NGFW should be able to scale as needed to continue providing fast, effective security even during network spikes.

Simple Management

Networks have become increasingly complex, but protecting them can be simple. A high-quality NGFW should offer a granular, high-visibility, single pane of glass security management. You should be able to view and manage security policies for your entire network from any location. Look for a firewall solution that also provides effective automation. Automated auditing and workflow capabilities ensure complete protection even with minimal security personnel.

Fortinet’s Solution

Fortinet continues to provide best-in-class security and performance with their FortiGate-500E NGFW. FortiGate-500E has undergone extensive third-party testing through NSS Labs and recently received its sixth “Recommended” rating from the validation center. The most recent results highlight FortiGate-500E’s robust security and high performance. In NSS’s tests, :

• Blocked 98.96% of exploits
• Stopped all live exploits
• Achieved 5.978Gbps throughput on combined traffic and 5.82Gbps on encrypted traffic
• Effectively inspected 100% of encrypted traffic and detected hidden threats

FortiGate-500E provides complete network security with the Fortinet Security Fabric. This end-to-end security architecture enables shared threat intelligence throughout the network, increasing security for every part of the enterprise. Purpose-built security processors maximize scalability of advanced security features. The enterprise-level management system provides high-visibility and control of the entire network. Fortinet’s streamlined, comprehensive NGFW solution is proven to offer a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and is designed to deliver an industry-best ROI.

Effective security is a vital requirement of an NGFW, but speed and performance should not be overlooked. A best-in-class NGFW should enhance your network, not hinder it. Look for an NGFW solution that provides thorough, rapid inspections of all traffic. A quality firewall should have a proven record of recognizing and blocking threats, including those hiding in encrypted traffic. Your NGFW should be highly scalable for complete protection even during network spikes. The management platform should also be taken into consideration. Your firewall solution should simplify network security management, providing granular control and high-visibility. Invest in the future of your enterprise with a quality NGFW that offers a low TCO, high ROI, and best-in-class security and performance.

NEXT STEPS: Looking for insight on how to “up your security game” to meet the needs of your organization’s digital transformation initiatives? We invite you to check out the Fortinet Solution Guide, Read it today!

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