Firewall upgrades in the finance industry

As small to medium-sized (SMB) banks and other institutions providing financial services solutions migrate more employees and customers to the cloud, they can feel overwhelmed by ever-escalating bandwidth requirements and their inability to keep pace with cyberthreats.

The first line of cybersecurity defense is typically the firewall which is why implementing cybersecurity is so important. defense is typically the firewall. Yet many banks see hardware-based firewalls as inadequate as software-based implementations inside desktop operating systems.

Hardware solutions don’t typically respond flexibly enough to changing threat requirements, and upgrading often means buying a new machine before the old one can be depreciated. It’s too often a costly, complicated endeavor.

Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) have not remained the panacea they were once thought to be. While they incorporate advanced features such as deep packet inspection, intrusion detection and prevention, and other security tools into a single product, NGFWs are still hardware devices that have difficulty scaling. Fast-moving businesses can get frustrated with the buy-a-new-box / add-a-new-box cycle.

For these reasons, firewall functionality is fast becoming a hosted, network-based security service. Continuous updates combine the benefits of scalable flexibility with enterprise-class capabilities. In the case of Cloud Networking, banks can utilize VPN for business to connect to any cloud computing or IT service environment in the AT&T global ecosystem— bypassing the Internet for even greater security.

AT&T is a leading provider of integrated solutions for business, powered by the global network with more secure connections than any other provider in North America. To learn more about digital transformation in the finance industry, visit our Financial Services solutions page.