The Rise and Rise of SD-WAN – How Nextro is harnessing Next-Generation Fortinet Firewalls  

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, ensuring robust network security is paramount for businesses. As threats become more sophisticated and user traffic rapidly switches between cloud and on-premise, companies require advanced solutions to work efficiently and safeguard their data and operations.

Fortinet’s Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) are converging networking and security to offer enhanced features powered by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) that can delve deeper into network traffic than ever before.

At Nextro, we understand the significance of staying ahead of the curve in the ever-changing landscape of NGFW. So, join us as we dive into the exciting trends shaping the NGFW market and Nextro solutions that help Kiwi businesses stay ahead.

Internet as a Corporate Network

Relying on the Internet as a corporate network creates opportunities and risks for organisations. Traditional firewalls are no longer sufficient in the face of advanced threats. NGFWs integrate multiple security technologies to detect and prevent a wide range of cyber-attacks, including malware, ransomware, and zero-day exploits.

NGFWs protect against internet-based attacks by continuously gathering threat intelligence from diverse sources across the network. They offer advanced features such as signature-based intrusion detection and application-specific packet inspection, ensuring comprehensive security and safeguarding your valuable assets.

Integration of Secure WAN Edges

Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) has emerged as a game-changer for businesses seeking flexible, cost-effective network connectivity. This is especially so in the New Zealand market, where we have the benefit of the superbly-well executed ultrafast broadband project (UFB) where affordable 1Gpbs, 2Gbps and 4Gbps connections are fast becoming the norm.

However, companies are shifting away from traditional perimeter hub-and-spoke models as people work from home, with more and more traffic requiring edge-routing direct to the Internet and public cloud. With the increase of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, the distribution of branches is also getting wider.

NGFWs seamlessly integrate with SD-WAN solutions, offering centralised management and allowing organisations to route traffic securely and efficiently, as well as deploy consistent security protocols across distributed branch offices, remote sites, and remote users.

Zero Trust Architecture

The traditional perimeter-based security approach is gradually being replaced by Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), which assumes that no user or device should be inherently trusted. NGFWs play a pivotal role in implementing ZTA by verifying user identities, inspecting traffic, and enforcing access controls based on a least-privilege model.

Nextro’s Fortinet-based NGFW solutions embrace Zero Trust principles, providing robust authentication mechanisms and access policies for a comprehensive security posture.

Increasingly Malicious Threats

Nextro understands the severity of the evolving cyber threat landscape that continues to find more sophisticated ways to infiltrate networks. Fortinet’s NGFWs provide a converged approach to networking and security, integrating with other solutions such as ZTA and inline sandboxes. By leveraging ML and AI, NGFW solutions provide proactive threat detection to mitigate advanced threats and real-time response, ensuring your business stays protected.

Rise of the Hybrid Mesh Firewall

To address the complexities of modern and hybrid ecosystems, firewall policies must support work from anywhere. With Hybrid Mesh Firewall (HMF) platforms, companies can define and enforce policy controls across workloads, users, and locations, ensuring consistent protection throughout their network. Whether their infrastructure is cloud-based, on-premises, or virtual machines, NGFWs seamlessly communicate and integrate, providing a unified security approach, easy edge breakout, and seamless productivity.

At Nextro, we are committed to continuous education and enhancements for ourselves and our customer networks. The objective is to stay ahead of the threat actors by providing up-to-date network and security solutions.

Nextro’s Fortinet-based NGFW solutions are designed to meet the highest performance, reliability, and scalability standards. From enhanced threat detection and SD-WAN integration to cloud-based management and Zero Trust Architecture, we offer connectivity and security solutions allowing your business to thrive securely.

For more information on how Nextro can design a secure networking solution for your company, please get in touch today.