Then & Now: Firewall Progression – What is Next for Fortinet?

Introduction

In a time when cyber threats are increasing exponentially, the importance of strong and evolving firewall technologies is greater than ever. The other hand Fortinet, which leaders in firewall technology and cybersecurity for a long time. The more digitised a business is, the necessity for strong security becomes even greater. A new solution emerges among the already existing business opportunities to rent firewalls, servers, and routers taking care of system security with flexibility and scalability requirements. Here, we will discuss how firewalls technology has evolved and what innovations of the future Fortinet is considering to outpace new threats.

Firewalls: A Brief History

Firewall evolution, from the beginning اذ‡ Firewalls have come a long way since their initial offering and accept no… And the better we understand their evolution, the more we can appreciate how far today’s technologies have come.

Packet Filtering: 1st Generation Firewalls

Packet filters The first firewalls were packet filters developed in the late 1980s. These were network-layer firewalls that looked at packets as they traveled through the device and allowed or denied traffic based on predefined rules. Simple though they were, this laid the foundation for future upgrades.

Second-Generation Firewalls: Stateful Inspection

Stateful inspection firewalls arrived in the 1990s. These firewalls also expanded packet filtering, by tracking the state of active connections. These could be watching state, and context of the traffic which made them greatly more efficient and secure than what came before.

Third-Generation Firewalls: Application Layer Filtering

Application-layer filtering firewalls became the norm in about 2003 with the advent of internet and web-based applications. These firewalls next inspected the data within packets — their payloads, this provided for much more specificity in determining what to let into your network and out again. It was mainly to protect specific applications and vulnerabilities.

Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW): Integrated Security

In the late 2000s, however, next-gen firewalls arrived on scene and changed everything. Stateful inspection, packed analysis and an intrusion prevention systems (IPS) system with features such as deep packet inspection (DPI), threat intelligence NGFWs integrated. Allowing them to provide an integrated security solution that detects and responds real-time attacks.

Fortinet’s Role

Fortinet has been a major player in the firewall tech space, evolving to keep pace with new threats.

FortiGate Firewalls: State of the Art Security

The company’s flagship product is FortiGate, which clearly shows its core dedication towards cybersecurity. Completely automated method designed to give you the power of FortiGate’s purpose-built security processors and threat intelligence, which offers consistent performance by various types.

Key features include:

• High-throughput capabilities
• Advanced threat protection
• Integrated IPS, VPN and web filtering
• Scalable solutions for both SMBs and Enterprise docs

FortiGuard Labs: Intelligence and Research

An integral to firewalls technology is a service under the control of FortiGuard Labs, the research arm at Fortinet. FortiGuard Labs is the global threat intelligence and research organization of Fortinet, comprised of a team that monitors emerging cyber threats 24 hours-a-day.

Future Innovations

Threats change so the technology to counteract them has got to evolve. There are a number of ways in which Fortinet is innovating to address these challenges coming down the pike.

Integration of AI and Machine Learning

Today, the most innovative developments in cybersecurity are coming out of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Utilizing the new processors, Fortinet plans to introduce AI and ML tools more out-of-the-box into their firewalls. This will allow for:

• Predictive threat analysis
• Automated incident response
• Enhanced anomaly detection

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

The move to remote work and cloud services has increased the requirement for scalable secure access. SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) is a framework that was first proposed by Gartner in August of 2019 to combine networking and security services — as zero trust/SD-WAN does at the corporate data center’s network edge into one, cloud-native solution. What Fortinet is Working on with SASE Solutions:

• Reduced complexity
• Improved performance
• Centralized management

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

ZTNA is a security model that does away with the notion of trust inside a network and instead assumes there are threats outside — an increasingly plausible assumption. This will see every access request getting properly validated. That said, Fortinet plans to embed ZTNA in its firewalls showcasing:

• Granular access control
• Enhanced security posture
• Reduced attack surface

Quantum-Ready Security

Quantum computing entering onto the scene poses a significant threat to current encryption techniques. Fortinet is working on quantum-safe security solutions that will secure data and communications; even when used in a post-quantum universe.

Renting Solutions

The ever-shifting business landscape requires security solutions that are both agile and scalable. Advantages of renting out firewalls, servers or routers:

• Cost-effective: Eliminates high capital expenditure due to large initial investment.
• Scalable: Easily increase (or decrease) on demand
• Flexibility: The ability to book a short-term rental when temporary or seasonal needs arise.

Businesses can ensure that they always have the latest Fortinet solutions but without any of the costs associated with ownership. This provides a way to get top-level security also for small companies

Conclusion

The narrative of firewall tech speaks to the unending nature of that chase toward increasingly more grounded reason for security solutions. The path has been long and full of innovation — from basic packet filters to complex NGFWs. As we have moved continuously to newer solutions, Fortinet has been at the forefront of these innovations & always ahead in box pace when it comes under an evolving threat spectrum. And with the continued integration of AI and ML to SASE, ZTNA, quantum-ready security now as well on top by Fortinet into their offerings guaranteeing a safe harden-only landscape for businesses moving forward in an ever so fast-paced digital environment. This makes renting of firewall technology, servers and routers an attractive proposition to businesses looking for flexibility as well as security without needing huge investments in capital.

By being aware and adaptable with the signs, enterprises can ready themselves to encounter future cyber threats. Fortinet: with great effort, Fortinet provides you deployably forward-looking method and full-stream solutions to fulfill the purpose.