If you have a distributed network, you can even host your Dimension server in Amazon Web Services and send the log data from as many fireboxes as you want to your Dimension server in the cloud. Ultimately, a good security appliance makes monitoring and maintenance easy to do so that a good security engineer can do their job effectively and quickly. One of my signature sayings is, " Your security is only as good as the skill of the person who programmed it.
It is true that the right appliance is necessary, and it needs to have a valid security subscription. But those two items by themselves will not get you very far without the skills of an experienced security engineer working to protect your interests. A good security engineer will implement a configuration that maximizes your security while customizing allowances for the things you need to get access to.
Security appliances can do everything that a firewall and router can do, and then a bunch more. The section on security appliance capabilities shows this list of features in depth. Standard firewalls are also routers that can do NAT and stateful packet inspection. They can do basic port-forwarding, but there are typically limitations on the ability to protect the incoming ingress traffic.
A standard firewall also has interface limitations. For example, Linksys, Netgear, and Cisco routers have a limited set of firewall capabilities including having a single interface for LAN traffic. Cisco expects you to use expensive Cisco switches and use those to create VLAN definitions and segment traffic that way. That is because Cisco devices are not security appliances.
They are really routers. In all circumstances where I have seen a business-class Cisco router installed, I have seen misconfiguration problems. This is because the configuration of Cisco routers is extremely time-consuming and convoluted to sort through. A single configuration could be comprised of 20 pages of config that is very difficult to interpret.
This is in stark contrast to a WatchGuard security appliance where all of the security policies are available for viewing on a single screen. It is easy to audit the configuration of a WatchGuard appliance, thereby knowing that there are not security misconfigurations that will lead to breaches.
A common misconfiguration problem I see is that the Cisco routers were being used as perimeter defense, but never had the firewall feature enabled. Clearly, this speaks to the incompetence of the person who configured the device. The typical security appliance is designed to last 3 years. After that, you should keep your old unit as a spare and get a new unit. If you buy a compatible model, your security engineer can likely transfer the configuration file with minor changes rather than having to do a full configuration from scratch.
The big reason to buy a new unit is because hardware gets old and tired and the new hardware will have more horsepower. It is quite typical for more RAM and processor to be added to new units compared to older units.
Given the need to have horsepower to deal with the dynamic threat landscape, you need that additional horsepower. You also get limited support. When I say limited support, there is a limit to how many support cases you can open with WatchGuard per year. The reason for this is obvious. There is a limit to the fee you paid for your subscription, so there has to be a limit to the support requests. Security appliances are not designed to be managed by end users.
They are designed to be managed by network security engineers. This means you should plan that your primary support is a WatchGuard partner company like QPC, and then the support tickets with WatchGuard would only be used for things that need to be escalated to WatchGuard.
Our training model has been extremely successful resulting in the vast majority of issues being able to be handled by the IT manager internally. One of the reasons QPC recommends WatchGuard equipment is due to its ability to be friendly to people who are not network engineers, but do have the ability to be trained in technical matters.
There are two general ways to buy security appliances. You can buy them with a one-year of security subscription, or a three-year security subscription. You get a slight discount for purchasing all three years up front, but the acquisition cost is higher then.
I am always amused when I see some person who claimed to be an IT professional using a Default IP schemes should never be used because they are predictable and make it easier for hackers to guess the network layout topology. In order to understand this, I'm going to use two examples: the Cisco example, and the WatchGuard example.
In the Cisco scenario, let's say you have an ASA device as your perimeter device and Cisco switches in your network plus a couple gateway wireless controllers. The switches play a leading role, not a supporting role. This means that in order for you to audit your network configuration, you have to scrape through the 20 pages of ASA config and the configuration of every single switch you have. You also have to scrape through the config of the gateway wireless controller.
Suffice to say that this is one hugely time-consuming difficult task that is prone to human error. Because of the sheer effort required, this type of an audit is rarely done, and misconfigurations are pretty well sure to exist. In the WatchGuard scenario, let's say you have a Firebox as your perimeter device and HP series switches.
The Firebox IS the gateway wireless controller. The Firebox defines the network and is the core router. It defines the VLAN configuration. The HP switches play a supporting role. In this scenario, nearly all of your network configuration is all in one device making it easy to troubleshoot, easy to monitor, and easy to audit. Even the wireless configuration can be audited from by accessing the Firebox. The only thing the HP switches are doing is handling layer 3 packet routing and tagging.
Remember that a security appliance can only apply security to network traffic it can see. Now you may be wondering if you will experience a slow network because the Firebox is involved in so much of the traffic management functions.
The answer is no if the Firebox was sized properly. I'll give you a real world example to elaborate on this concept. Sounds confusing right? That would be an understatement. I looked at the mess and replaced the whole pile of confusing jumble with a single XTM Firebox. And we removed all the unnecessary VLAN config from the switches. We went from 12 VLANs to 3.
All Files. Submit Search. You are here:. Quantum Spark , and Appliance Series Overview Appliances Quantum Spark appliance series includes the , , , , and R appliances. Note - Some topics only apply to specific appliances or models. Free Trial. Description Additional information Description The Cisco Meraki MX is an integrated router, next-generation firewall, traffic shaper, and Internet gateway that is centrally managed over the web.
MX Series Webinars. Choose an option 3 Year Advanced Security Clear. Remote access encrypts data traffic whether you are on the road or in the office. The Appliances offer monitoring of network traffic by user and easily generate activity reports and logs. This is why the Check Point appliances are based on the same industry-leading threat prevention technology that is used to secure Fortune organizations, optimized on an enterprise-grade chassis for maximum performance.
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The Check Point appliances are designed to be easy to deploy and use—even for non-technical staff. Initial setup is performed through an easy-to-use management interface, and configuration is a snap with a simple yet powerful start-up wizard, allowing the appliances to be deployed in minutes.
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