Firewalls are one of the oldest forms of network protection. They’ve been around since the 1980s, during which they were originally used to protect business networks from malicious traffic. Even today, millions of businesses use firewalls as part of their overall cybersecurity strategy.
If your business has a network, you may want to deploy a firewall to protect it from malicious traffic. A firewall is a piece or hardware or software that filters network traffic based on customizable rules. You can even choose a firewall as a service. Like all firewalls, it will filter your business’s network traffic based on rules that you set. A firewall as a service, however, is a cloud-based traffic-filtering service.
What Is a Firewall as a Service?
A firewall as a service is exactly what it sounds like: a cloud-based firewall that’s offered as a service. You can subscribe to a firewall as a service — typically for a monthly or annual fee — to protect against network threats. The firewall as a service will work like most other firewalls. It will scan traffic coming into and going out of your business’s network. It will then allow or prohibit the traffic based on a set of rules.
How a Firewall as a Service Works
You might be wondering how a firewall as a service works exactly. It’s essentially a virtualized firewall that’s offered as a service. Traditional firewalls are deployed locally. Whether it’s a hardware or software firewall, it will likely be deployed locally on the network with which it’s used. A firewall as a service, on the other hand, is deployed remotely. It’s a cloud-based service in which a remote provider deploys the firewall as a service on your business’s network over the internet.
Benefits of Using a Firewall as a Service
A firewall as a service offers several benefits. It will protect your business’s network from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks often target business networks. They involve a spammer sending thousands of data packets to a target network in an effort to overload and contest the network. A firewall as a service can filter traffic associated with DDOS attacks so that they don’t overload your business’s network.
In terms of scalability, there’s no substitution for a firewall as a service. You can scale a firewall as a service to accommodate your business’s growth. Traditional, locally deployed firewalls are less scalable. You may have to purchase an entirely new firewall as your business grows.