As the number of deployed firewalls increases, so do operational headaches and administrative overhead. Check Point Software Technologies has dominated on this front because its platform offers one of the few truly scalable management frameworks. However, as NetScreen Technologies and other competitors get their management acts together, Check Point will have to fight for continued dominance. Regardless, organizations considering enterprise-level firewall implementations should scrutinize the management framework. Pilot error is still a big problem in firewall administration, and a clear interface can help reduce mistakes.
Rapid quarantining and containment is crucial for large-scale, multinational corporations that need to combat worm outbreaks. For example, in 2001 a number of the Fortune 500 took serious hits when Nimbda rapidly infected key Web and mail servers and wreaked havoc within organizations that had "mushy" centers.
In fact, in 2002 we even saw worms take down PBXs, evidence that some of the industry's leading voicemail systems have vulnerable Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows operating systems running under the hood. Smart organizations were able to contain outbreaks, however, with detection and quarantine processes. Although many of these manual quarantine efforts used simple router ACLs (access-control lists), strategically placed firewalls with unified management frameworks could have made the process even more efficient. And for those that didn't have choke points in place, these deployments could have made the difference between safety and six- to seven-figure losses.
Rapid-response capabilities are a combination of technology and process: Organizations with response procedures, timely access to router and firewall reprogramming capabilities, and the ability to tune their Web caching engines saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtime and repair costs.
The enterprise firewall market is dominated by Cisco and Check Point, according to Gartner, with NetScreen slowly gaining ground. Check Point packs in more options than a Japanese cell phone, but
it will be interesting to see if Cisco and NetScreen start leveraging their integration plans to gain ground. NetScreen is looking to integrate its recently acquired OneSecure inline NIPS and normalization technology into its firewall line, and Cisco has begun putting firewall, VPN (virtual private networking) and IDS functionality into its core switching platforms.
Finally, organizations that are looking for more than just a strong front door may want to keep an eye on Intruvert Networks, TippingPoint Technologies, NetScreen and others that offer Layer 7 inspection and scrubbing features. While few will argue the security benefits of traditional Layer 7 application-proxy-based firewalls, the lack of clear development progress on many traditional proxy-based solutions, such as Secure Computing's SideWinder and Gauntlet (recently acquired from Network Associates) and Symantec's Raptor, has left many practitioners scratching their heads. Some of the "normalization" features found in OpenBSD have sparked interest, and products such as OneSecure's (now NetScreen's) IDP offer a curious blend of intrusion prevention and normalization features.We may see such "proxy killers" gain momentum in the coming months (for more on normalization, see www.aciri.org/vern/papers/norm-usenix-sec-01.pdf).
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