There is a prevalence of network threats across the world, and the rate, at which these threats continue to emerge, is more rapid than ever before. Cisco Next Generation Firepower (CNGFW) security technologies is information security service that provides all the visibility and control an organization can use to anticipate and meet information security threats in the future. Cisco Firepower, next generation solution, is built from the ground so that it could keep organizations, individuals, and governments safer. CFNGFW is a fully integrated and threat-focused form of firewall. It was built after Cisco had acquired Sourcefire in 2013 and seamlessly combined it with the best ASA firewall to deliver a single and unified management and image console. It has advanced Malware protection, intrusion prevention, Radware DefensePro protection, and URL filtering capabilities. All of these functions are unified and tied together with a unified policy and visibility management and focused on threat automation and workflows to provide the NGFWs solution. The key capabilities of NGFW include support of 1/10/40 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, low latency, an RU form factor, and over 60 Gps firewall. This paper claims that Cisco Firepower NGFW is a good solution for information systems and recommends its use due to its high level of integration, its capability to prevent information system form a wide range of security threats, its relatively low costs as compared to other solutions, and its capability to use minimum software and hardware requirements.
Information Security Threat/Vulnerability
Cisco Firepower provides for marketing plan writing services a next generation prevention against intrusion; it has a fully integrated advanced protection against malware, and it address both known and unknown threat protection. The solution protects against viruses, bots, spyware, adware, trojans, and worms. It provides users with the ability to track and contain all forms of malware infections, analyzes all network weaknesses and focuses the resources on the threats that matter the most. Cisco Firepower NGFW also detects and mitigates SYN flood attack, anomalous flood attacks including malformed and nonstandard packet attacks, and application DDoS attacks such as DNS query floods and HTTP floods.
Hardware and Software Requirements
Cisco NGFW smoothly integrates with an organization’s existing IT environment, network fabric, and work stream. It provides robust and consistent security across organization’s breaches and Internet edge as well as data centers in both virtual and physical environments.
Cisco NGFW requires SSP-60 hardware blades and SSP-60 firewalls software. Thus, Cisco Firepower next generation includes an optional Firepower next-gen IPS software, application visibility and control (AVC), URL filtering, and Cisco Advanced Malware Protection software for networks (Panada). It must also have Cisco Firepower 9300 NGFW appliances and Cisco Firepower 4100 series. It must also be connected to Cisco Firepower Management Center which provides a unified management for all the NGFW. It must also have a Radware DefensePro (vDP).
Knowledge and Training to Implement The Cisco Firepower NGFW solution
To implement the Cisco Firepower NGFW solution successfully, it is important to go through the lab based instructor-led courses offered by Cisco. The training enables business organizations to support and maintain their Cisco Firepower. The courses aim to provide knowledge on in-depth event analysis, Snort rules language, and MIPS tuning and configuration. One must also possess the knowledge of system architecture, current and latest major features, and all the policies involved in implementing the solution. The training should also be based on how to manage and perform basic Cisco Firepower NGFW discovery. One must be able to describe how to configure Cisco Firepower NGIPs technology such as security intelligence, firewall, application control, and network-based file controls and malware. Training can take between four and five days. Training should be done to security administrators, network administrators, channel partners and resellers, system engineers, and security consultants (Cisco). It is important for individuals to have a technical understanding of TCP/IP networking and networking architecture. One should also have a basic familiarity with models and concepts of IPS and intrusion detection systems (IDS).
Costs Associated with Cisco Firepower NGFW Solution
Cisco NGFW takes an incorporated approach to defense against threats and reduces capital as well as other operating costs and administrative costs. Although Cisco Firepower NGFW may seem attractive to several organizations due to the level of integration, enabling all the features of this solution may have hinder financial performances on the organization due to relatively high costs as compared to other solutions. The solution costs approximately $1,100 for between 1 and 99 users and $100,000 for over 5000 users. A one-year subscription for Cisco Firepower NGFW license costs approximately $4,295. There are costs associated with licensing the various features of the solution. For example, organizations are required to get FireSIGHT licenses and licenses for ASA Firepower Module.
Conclusion
The Cisco Firepower NGFW is an industry fully integrated information system solution focused on threats, and it has a unified management. The solution provides unique and advanced protection against threats before, during, and after attacks. Its primary features include the ability to integrate multiple security services into one solution, capabilities for advanced network security analytics, capabilities for advanced malware protection with both dynamic and static malware inspection, and a tight integration between network intelligence and NGFWs. The solution provides protection against threats such as intrusion, viruses, bots, spyware, adware, trojans, and worms, SYN flood attack, anomalous flood attacks, including malformed and nonstandard packet attacks as well as application DDoS attacks such as DNS query floods and HTTP floods. For it to operate, it needs requires SSP-60 hardware blades and SSP-60 firewalls software. The Cisco lab-based and instructor-led training are important because they enable the security administrators, network administrators, channel partners and resellers, system engineers, and security consultants to gain important insights concerning how Cisco Firepower can be implemented. A one-year subscription for Cisco Firepower NGFW costs approximately $4,295, while other subscriptions may go for $100,000 for over 5000 users and $1100 for between 1 and 99 users. When compared to other IS solutions, Cisco Firewall NNGFW is less costly and highly performing. Therefore, organizations should buy this IS solution.
This text is written by Bryan Morrell