Next Gen Firewall Problems Cry Out For Solution Providers

Security management vendor Algosec says new firewalls are creating problems that are begging for a solution from the channel. According to a study commissioned by Algosec, the complexity of next generation firewalls has created a management headache CIOs could desperately do without.

According to the study 36 percent of firms surveyed had implemented next-generation firewalls to improve security or reduce IT spend, but already 57 percent said they were harder to manage and had increased their management workload.

Insecure CIOs

The biggest challenge was that an out-of-process change was creating a network or application outage, a problem that resellers could solve for nearly eight out of 10 (77%) clients if asked. For one fifth of the sample these ended in data breaches and 63 percent of respondents reported internal threats as a security concern.

AlgoSec’s European 2013 State of Network Security Report, based on a survey of 130 IT security and network operations professionals in April 2013, could become a white paper on sales opportunities for the channel, according to Paul Clark, AlgoSec’s regional director for the UK.

“Organisations are struggling with increasingly complex networks,” said Clark. “The biggest challenges for InfoSec and IT teams come with manual processes and poor visibility.”

Companies are exposed to the risk of outages and security breaches, often caused by their own employees and processes. On the other hand, increased security comes at the price of more changes, more policies to manage, and more complexity, according to user feedback.

“Moving away from manual processes and toward automated, centralised management of processes and policies will help organisations to fully realise the potential of next generation firewalls to improve overall security and reduce costs,” said Clark.

Around half (48%) of the CIOs questioned worried that employees were jeopardising security through data leaks and errors, while 24 percent were troubled by financially-motivated hackers.

Meanwhile, managing BYOD challenges has made life worse for 65 percent of the IT professionals quizzed. “It highlights the desperate need for end-users to simplify and automate security policy management,” said a spokesman. “This can give VARs a strong upselling opportunity with customers, in helping them get better control of their security.”