Managed Firewall Services to Secure Your Business

Managed firewall services include comprehensive management of firewall deployment and maintenance lifecycle. Interface will ensure that all security policies involving IPS, URL filtering, NextGen ACLs, VPNs, and security zones are implemented consistently across business locations. We will also take complete responsibility for proactively applying security updates or patches and software updates to eliminate potential vulnerabilities. Our teams will monitor the firewall performance and logs in addition to offering technical support as needed.

Procuring, installing, and configuring complex firewall security policies for a large number of business locations is a complex challenge for in-house IT or network teams due to the following reasons:

• Diverse Security Threats: Firewall policies have to be configured to cater to different threat levels across diverse applications, users, and devices.
• Operational Flexibility: Implementing changes in business tactics or launching new services may require a complete overhaul of firewall policies and implementation.
• Cost: Procuring, installing, and maintaining firewall hardware devices is challenging and expensive for in-house IT teams struggling with limited manpower and lack of scale.
• Coordination: When making changes to firewall configurations, it is important to coordinate with each location to ensure that the changes do not impact their operations. This can be time-consuming and may require additional communication and coordination efforts.
• Scalability: As the business grows and expands, adding new locations and managing more firewalls can become increasingly difficult and complex. This can require additional resources and expertise to manage effectively.

Interface can take over the management of customer’s existing firewalls provided the existing devices meet the configuration and OS standards needed for the business. Before taking over the management of legacy firewall solutions, Interface teams will conduct a thorough discovery process to determine the extent of the hardware that can be reused and the need for upgrading the firewall solution.

To configure firewall security policies spanning multiple locations and ensure consistent application of corporate security policy, Interface network teams take the following approach:

1. Develop a standard security policy: Create a standard security policy in consultation with the customer IT team to identify what types of traffic are allowed and what types are not allowed.
2. Implement a centralized firewall management system: Use a centralized firewall management system to manage firewall security policies across all locations.
3. Categorize network resources: Categorize network resources based on their sensitivity levels. For example, mission-critical resources such as POS data should have stricter security policies compared to non-sensitive resources such as marketing materials.
4. Configure policies based on resource categories: Based on resource categories, configure firewall security policies to restrict access to sensitive resources only to authorized personnel.
5. Conduct regular security audits: Conduct regular security audits to identify vulnerabilities and ensure that security policies are being implemented effectively.
6. Implement change validation and change control procedures: Test firewall policy changes and implement change control procedures to ensure that all changes are documented and authorized before implementation.
7. Monitor changes closely: Monitor changes closely after implementation to ensure that they are working as intended and to quickly identify and resolve any issues that may arise.

Using a managed service provider to centrally administer your firewalls allows the customer’s IT team to focus on core business challenges and brings to bear specialized experts from the service provider to tackle network security.

The Interface team keeps the firewall devices up to date with OS updates and patches and offers real-time monitoring and troubleshooting. In addition, Interface teams can define firewall deployment templates and publish resolution guides for faster firewall rollout and minimize downtime.

Managed firewall services can scale as the business grows, allowing customers to add or remove locations and users as needed. This means that customers can easily adapt their network security to meet changing needs and stay compliant with PCI and HIPAA standards.