Solutions Application Aware Firewalls

Application Aware Firewalls

Next Generation Firewall Security

What are Application Aware Firewalls (AAF)?

In a nutshell

Application Aware Firewalls (AAF) adopt the latest innovations in software and hardware to provide
unprecedented network security for todays demanding IT infrastructures.

With the ability to view and identify all network traffic, AAF provides granular control on application usage and behaviour. You now have full control of what leaves and enters your network using a single appliance and apply security policies based on applications and users rather than traditional methods of port and protocol.

Traditional firewalls may be giving enterprises a false sense of security, because they are failing to cope with ever-changing digital threats.

Its time to fix the firewall

In a recent a study of 900,000 users, Silicon valley software firm Palo Alto found that 100 per cent of the
organisations surveyed had firewalls and 87 per cent also had one or more firewall helpers (for example, a proxy, an IPS, URL filtering), yet they were unable to exercise control over the application traffic traversing the network.

Currently, port-based firewall technology has failed to address the evolution of the application and threat
landscape, where threats can run over any port, encrypt, evade and tunnel. IT organisations have tried to
compensate for these deficiencies in legacy firewalls by surrounding them with proxies, intrusion detection/
prevention systems, URL filtering and other costly and complex devices that are also ineffective in today’s
application and threats. AAF or Next Generation Firewalls are designed explicitly to replace these deficiencies by providing the capabilities at the firewall to fix the problem and simplify enterprise security infrastructures.

Key benefits of AAF

Application Aware Firewalls enables enterprises to:

Powerful visibility of current and historical applications running across the network
Ability to enforce security rules on applications, regardless of port, protocol, signature, port-evasiveness and encryption
Granular apply security policies on applications, such as allowing access to MSN chat, but
restricting MSN file transfers
Integration with Active Directory, Novel, Radius and other e-directories
Ability to apply Quality of Service / traffic shaping rules by application, user, port, groups, subnet and more
Integrated Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to protect your network against a wide range of threats
Anti Virus and Data Leakage Prevention
URL filtering and catagorisation with detailed reporting
Multi gigabyte performance using innovative design and dedicated processing engines

Layer 7 Visibility and Control

Layer 7 firewalling and visibility gives enterprises the tools necessary to control today’s applications. With applications such as P2P, Skype and MSN Messenger prevalent on corporate networks, AAF becomes a strategic investment in maintaining network security while reducing and controlling bandwidth utilisation.

With granular control, AAF can for example allow you to associate facebook access to a given group of users, but prohibit facebook chat or file transfer. There is now no need to purchase additional
technologies to assist your firewall in combating such threats or user behaviour. AAF provides the highest level of security and control from a single appliance.

How can AAF benefit my business ?

Sprawl Is Not The Answer

Despite efforts to regain visibility and control by adding more security appliances, most organizations remain stymied – unacceptably.

IT security staffs have added a variety of devices around the firewall in an attempt to regain control of their networks, including:

Intrusion detection systems/intrusion prevention systems (IDS/IPS)
Proxies
URL filters
Data leak prevention (DLP) devices
Web antivirus devices
IM security devices

Not only do these devices not solve the problem, they increase complexity and cost – which, in today’s economic climate, is simply unacceptable.

Lower total cost of ownership and simplify

Cost savings can be obtained from device consolidation using Application Aware firewalls.
By consolidating multiple network security devices (e.g. firewalls, IPS, URL filtering), AAF reduce costs associated with capital expenditure, maintenance and support contracts, management and training while reducing your carbon footprint.

With the ability for total application and traffic visibility on your network you can take back control of your network easily and cost effectively.

Make Computrad your first choice for Security

Computrad has implemented security environments for a wide range of company sizes and industry types globally. We work with the US Federal Agencies, e-gaming companies, government, law firms, charities and universities.

Computrad has the finest security capabilities, with experienced design consultants and technical staff who are trained in the implementation and support of security environments.

Our experts are vendor agnostic so we can provide objective non-biased solutions across the entire
security infrastructure – you can be assured of a solution that is tailored to your requirements based on the optimum configuration of hardware, software and specialist services.

Security requires expertise across the entire life of the project if you are to gain the full benefit.
Computrad provides full end to end integration services from consulting, planning, design, project management builds and implementation.

The right solution for a wide range of problems

Whether you are looking for an easier way to manage your security, reduce costs, improve security and visibility, Computrad has a AAF solution for your business.