What is a Next Gen Firewall?
Your Google Cloud workloads are protected from both internal and external threats by Cloud Next Generation Firewall, a fully distributed firewall service with powerful security features, micro-segmentation, and widespread coverage.
Google Cloud NGFW
Benefits of Cloud NGFW include the following:
- Distributed firewall service: To support zero-trust security architecture, Cloud NGFW offers a completely distributed, stateful host-based enforcement on every workload.
- It streamlines the deployment and setup process by implementing network and hierarchical firewall rules that are affixed to resource hierarchy nodes. A uniform firewall experience is offered by these rules across the Google Cloud resource hierarchy.
- Granular control and micro-segmentation: Across Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks and organisations, firewall rules and Tags managed by Identity and Access Management (IAM) work together to give precise control for both east-west and north-south traffic, down to the level of a single virtual machine (VM).
There are many layers in which Cloud NGFW is accessible:
- Cloud Next-Gen Firewall Requirements
- Next-Generation Cloud Firewall Standard
- Cloud Next Generation Firewall Enterprise
Cloud NGFW also offers other functions. See Cloud NGFW price for more details on the cost of the firewall tiers and other capabilities.
Cloud NGFW Essentials
Cloud Essentials NGFW Cloud Google Cloud’s basic firewall solution is called NGFW Essentials. It has the following attributes and functionalities:
You may organise firewall rules into a policy object that is applicable to all regions or just a subset of them with the help of global and regional network firewall policies.
- Your Google Cloud resources may be finely regulated and micro-segmented with the use of IAM-governed Tags and network firewall regulations.
- Tags are strictly IAM controlled and centrally maintained with unique IDs. To enforce stricter and consistent access control across your network and regions, you may include references to these Tags in your network firewall policy rules.
- A single named logical unit is created by combining many IP addresses and IP ranges into an address group. For entry and egress control, the same address group may be mentioned in many firewall rules.
- Network-level traffic is filtered at the network level by VPC firewall rules that make use of service accounts and network tags.
Cloud NGFW Standard
This adds more functionality to Cloud NGFW Essentials, giving you even more power to defend your cloud infrastructure from hostile assaults.
It has the following characteristics:
- Firewall policy rules that include fully qualified domain name (FQDN) objects block incoming or outgoing traffic to or from certain domains. The IP addresses linked to the domain names are compared to the source or destination of the traffic based on the direction of the traffic.
- You may safeguard your network by permitting or restricting traffic based on Threat Intelligence data lists by using Threat Intelligence for firewall policy rules.
- Firewall policy rules with geolocation objects filter outbound IPv4 and IPv6 traffic according to predefined areas or geographic locations.
Cloud NGFW Enterprise
Cloud NGFW Enterprise, also known as Cloud Next Generation Firewall Enterprise, offers sophisticated layer 7 security features to safeguard your Google Cloud workloads from harmful intrusions.
The Cloud Next Generation Firewall Enterprise offers threat detection and protection against malware, spyware, and command-and-control assaults on your network. It also features intrusion prevention service with Transport Layer Security (TLS) interception and decryption.
Extra characteristics
In addition to the Cloud NGFW Essentials and Cloud NGFW Standard levels, Cloud NGFW offers the following features:
- Your organization’s firewall policy is created and enforced uniformly via hierarchical firewall policy rules. Hierarchical firewall rules may be applied to specific folders or the whole organisation.
- You can confirm if firewall rules are being utilised as intended with the help of firewall rules logging.
To safeguard their vital assets in the cloud, enterprises need strong network security solutions in the ever-changing threat environment of today. At Google Cloud Next,Google is excited to announce the public release of Google Cloud NGFW Enterprise, google’s next-generation cloud firewall product. Google Cloud is dedicated to delivering better cloud-first security controls.
Palo Alto Cloud NGFW
Google’s completely distributed cloud-first firewall solution, which was originally known as Cloud Firewall Plus, has evolved into Cloud NGFW Enterprise, which offers complete Zero Trust network security for your Google Cloud applications. With the use of Palo Alto Networks technology, it may provide sophisticated Intrusion Prevention Service (IPS) capabilities that can detect and stop unwanted traffic. With its high-performance, integrated TLS inspection capabilities, Cloud NGFW Enterprise also provides better security. You can utilise these capabilities to decode and systematically examine encrypted traffic for potential threats.
Palo Alto Next gen Firewall models
Three levels of Cloud NGFW are available: Essentials, Standard, and Enterprise. Google’s top-tier product, Cloud NGFW Enterprise, is based on Cloud NGFW Standard and comes with threat-intelligence features, geo-location data, and Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) objects.
Palo Alto Next gen Firewall
Easy to use and expandable: Because of its distributed design, Cloud NGFW Enterprise enables fine-grained security controls at the workload level. This design may assist in ensuring automatic scalability to suit your security and performance objectives, and it does away with the need for complicated routing modifications.
Google wanted to deploy complete threat prevention closer to their workloads as they shift more and more to the cloud. According to Richard Persaud, network security architect at McKesson CoverMyMeds, “Google’s Cloud NGFW Enterprise simplified their network architecture, gave them granular access control and advanced policy enforcement, all of which improved their overall security posture and lowered operations costs.”
Network security posture management built-in: Cloud NGFW Enterprise provides a feature-rich network security posture management solution that includes firewall insights, secure tags, and hierarchical rules. Within your company, you may establish and implement a uniform firewall policy using hierarchical rules, and more precisely identify and divide work using secure tags. You can constantly monitor and improve your security posture with the aid of the useful metrics that firewall insights give.
According to John Grady, senior analyst at TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group, “organisations need firewalls that are truly cloud-native and offer simplicity, scalability, and strong security to support secure cloud adoption.” “Cloud NGFW Enterprise’s high threat efficacy combined with a fully distributed architecture and built-in posture control helps security teams easily configure and enforce consistent security policies across their entire Google Cloud environment, saving them valuable time and resources.”
Palo Alto Next gen Firewall Features
Palo Alto Networks-powered Advanced Threat Protection
Palo Alto Networks’ industry-leading Threat Prevention technology is integrated into Cloud NGFW Enterprise’s completely distributed, cloud-first architecture. By examining traffic going to and from your Google Cloud workloads, this sophisticated intrusion prevention system can identify and stop unwanted behaviour, such as malware, exploits, and command-and-control communications.
Palo Alto Networks’ comprehensive threat intelligence capabilities, which prevent over 8.6 billion inbound assaults daily across 65,000 worldwide organisations, are advantageous to Cloud NGFW. Palo Alto Networks’ Cloud NGFW Enterprise powered by Palo Alto Networks demonstrated a 20-fold increase in threat prevention effectiveness in a testing scenario utilising third-party technologies when compared to competing cloud providers’ firewall capabilities. The quantity of threats that firewall products block serves as a gauge for threat prevention effectiveness.
Anand Oswal, SVP & GM of Network Security at Palo Alto Networks, said, “We’re excited that Google Cloud has chosen Palo Alto Networks’ Threat Prevention technology to power Cloud NGFW Enterprise.” “The solution offers strong defences against the most advanced cyberattacks to Google Cloud customers.”
Launch Google Cloud NGFW Enterprise now
You can confidently protect your cloud environment with the help of Google Cloud NGFW Enterprise. After turning on Cloud NGFW in the console, you may begin using it. You may enable additional security features, TLS inspection, and intrusion prevention for your Google Cloud workloads with a few clicks.
News source: Cloud NGFW
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