As businesses evolve into digital workplaces, cyber-attacks and data have become a common occurrence — the first step that most people take to counter this is knowing how to respond to a cyber-attack. However, that is not effective enough without having the best firewall.
A good firewall like sonicwall firewall to protect your business is typically a protective barrier (hardware) placed between the public internet and your internal network to prevent intrusions from entering your system. It functions by scanning traffic going in and out of your system as well as prevent malicious attacks from entering.
The pressures and complexities that surround choosing the best firewall is an issue to many business professionals. The struggle of picking the right one is as a result of the different features it offers. Below, is a list of top features of a firewall that you should consider before choosing one.
Robust Protection Against Malicious Attacks
A firewall will only be worth your hard-earned money if it has the capability of protecting your network from compromising threats. These threats include DDoS attacks and malicious hackers. Additionally, it should also scan for threats in traffic to and from applications within your system.
Real-Time Alerts
Technology is now making every process to be in real-time. A real-time feature is essential to any firewall. The feature will provide you with real-time updates of any attack that is in progress. Through this, you can combat the malicious attack before it spreads to the whole network.
Remote Access
The firewall that you’ll select should provide you with control and remote access to your site. The remote access is essential for businesses having employees working from home or multiple offices. Therefore, ensure it allows client-based VPN and site to site tunnels.
Spam and Website Filtering
The feature enables you to block websites based on individual website names and categories. It is an ideal feature in the case where you know some malicious sites. Additionally, it also performs spam filtering functions as well as inspecting the traffic coming through your email.
Sandboxing
It is the latest firewall feature innovation. The feature prevents access to malicious access to malicious content found in links. The feature monitors the link after a user clicks on it, and if the link turns out to be malicious, the feature sends a signal to the firewall. The firewall will then block the file and proceeds to stop it from being downloaded.
Inspection of Encrypted Traffic
It is an essential feature since most cyber attackers use encrypted traffic. The feature inspects SSL encrypted traffic. Firewalls with this feature capture the encrypted traffic as it comes into your network, then decrypt it and read it to ensure it is what it says it is. Finally, it re-encrypts and sends it back out. The whole process is accomplished by using the same SSL certificate.
Wireless control
The feature allows controlling wireless internet access and wireless access points connected to the firewall. With this feature, it will enable safe and protected wireless connections from smartphones, tablets, wireless printers, and tablets. It is an essential feature for businesses operating at a big working place or different geographical locations.