5/26/2020 What Is a Firewall?

- Cisco

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Firewalls /

What Is a Firewall?

A rewall is a network security device that monitors incoming and outgoing network trac and decides whether to allow or block specic
trac based on a dened set of security rules.

Firewalls have been a rst line of defense in network security for over 25 years. They establish a barrier between secured and controlled
internal networks that can be trusted and untrusted outside networks, such as the Internet. 

A rewall can be hardware, software, or both.

Watch rewall overview (1:21)

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Types of Firewalls Related Topics

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Types of rewalls

Proxy rewall

An early type of rewall device, a proxy rewall serves as the gateway from one network to another for a specic application. Proxy
servers can provide additional functionality such as content caching and security by preventing direct connections from outside the
network. However, this also may impact throughput capabilities and the applications they can support.

Stateful inspection rewall

Now thought of as a “traditional” rewall, a stateful inspection rewall allows or blocks trac based on state, port, and protocol. It
monitors all activity from the opening of a connection until it is closed. Filtering decisions are made based on both administrator-dened
rules as well as context, which refers to using information from previous connections and packets belonging to the same connection.

Unied threat management (UTM) rewall

A UTM device typically combines, in a loosely coupled way, the functions of a stateful inspection rewall with intrusion prevention and
antivirus. It may also include additional services and often cloud management. UTMs focus on simplicity and ease of use.

See our UTM devices.

Next-generation rewall (NGFW)

Firewalls have evolved beyond simple packet ltering and stateful inspection. Most companies are deploying next-generation rewalls to
block modern threats such as advanced malware and application-layer attacks.

According to Gartner, Inc.’s denition, a next-generation rewall must include:

Standard rewall capabilities like stateful inspection

Integrated intrusion prevention
Application awareness and control to see and block risky apps
Upgrade paths to include future information feeds
Techniques to address evolving security threats

While these capabilities are increasingly becoming the standard for most companies, NGFWs can do more.

Threat-focused NGFW

These rewalls include all the capabilities of a traditional NGFW and also provide advanced threat detection and remediation. With a
threat-focused NGFW you can:

Know which assets are most at risk with complete context awareness
Quickly react to attacks with intelligent security automation that sets policies and hardens your defenses dynamically
Better detect evasive or suspicious activity with network and endpoint event correlation
Greatly decrease the time from detection to cleanup with retrospective security that continuously monitors for suspicious activity and
behavior even after initial inspection
Ease administration and reduce complexity with unied policies that protect across the entire attack continuum

Learn about our threat-focused next-generation rewalls (NGFWs).

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