The traditional port-based enterprise firewall, now looking less like a guard and more like a pit stop for Internet applications racing in through the often open ports 80 and 443, is slowly losing out to a new generation of brawny, fast, intelligent firewalls.
The so called next-generation firewall (NGFW) describes an enterprise firewall/VPN that has the muscle to efficiently perform intrusion prevention sweeps of traffic, as well as have awareness about the applications moving through it in order to enforce policies based on allowed identity-based application usage. It’s supposed to have the brains to use information such as Internet reputation analysis to help with malware filtering or integrate with Active Directory.
But how long will it take for the NGFW transition to truly arrive?
WASHINGTON — It will take several more years for the government to fully install high-tech systems to block computer intrusions, a drawn-out timeline that enables criminals to become more adept at stealing sensitive data, experts say.
As the Department of Homeland Security moves methodically to pare down and secure the approximately 2,400 network connections used every day by millions of federal workers around the world, experts suggest that technology already may be passing them by.
The department that’s responsible for securing government systems other than military sites is slowly moving all the government’s Internet and e-mail traffic into secure networks that eventually will be guarded by intrusion detection and prevention programs. The networks are known as Einstein 2 and Einstein 3.
Progress has been slow, however. Officials are trying to complete complex contracts with network vendors, work out technology issues and address privacy concerns involving how the monitoring will affect employees and public citizens.
The WikiLeaks release of more than a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic documents underscores the massive challenge ahead, as Homeland Security labors to build protections for all of the other, potentially more vulnerable U.S. agencies.
“This is a continuing arms race and we’re still way behind,” said Stewart Baker, former Homeland Security undersecretary for policy.
The WikiLeaks breach affected the government’s classified military network and was as much a personnel gap as a technological failure.
Officials believe the sensitive documents were stolen from secure Pentagon computer networks by an Army intelligence analyst who downloaded them onto a CD.
The changes sought by Homeland Security on the government’s non-military computers would be wider and more systemic than the immediate improvements ordered recently by the Departments of Defense and State as a result of the WikiLeaks releases.
Those changes included improving the monitoring of computer usage and making it harder to move material onto a portable computer flash drive or CD.
