Enhanced Network Security Using Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW)

Abstract

This thesis described the necessity, deployment considerations, performance evaluation and the possible outcomes of using the next-generation firewalls (NGFW) in an enterprise network environment. A firewall is the most important component for any system considering their information security because it’s the first line of defense against every known and unknown security attacks. Security threats come with a big deal to any enterprise network, these threats always try to penetrate into the system’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Firewalls are designed to provide security against these threats, however, it can be more effective by timely implementation and fine-tuning of the configurations according to the network requirement. In this thesis, we have described how security threats are vulnerable to systems with their possible impacts. We also differentiated between different types of firewalls based on their features and capacities which could help anyone to choose the optimal one for any network environment. And, finally we have also shown how to better handle these firewalls to mitigate the impact of the latest security attacks without considering network performance using NextGeneration firewall technologies. Our proposed network model using NGFW improved a lot of segments of an existing network which was previously running without a firewall. Our experimental results could give a clear idea about how much improvement could be gained in network performance and security by using our recommended Next-generation firewalls.