How Managed Firewall Services Help Boost Network Security

High-profile security breaches are being reported in the news every week. Organizations in healthcare, energy, government and many other industry sectors are constantly targeted by cyberattacks.

Modern threats are frighteningly sophisticated and originate from all corners of the globe. Hackers identify vulnerabilities and strike quickly. To make matters worse, security breaches often go undetected for weeks or months, costing organizations millions and severely damaging their reputation.

A firewall is a first line of protection against these attacks. It blocks malicious sites and content and filters traffic to protect against Internet threats. However, organizations can’t block everything — they have to open up their firewalls to allow access by users and applications outside the secure perimeter. This requires careful configuration and periodic review of firewall settings to ensure that they’re accurate and up-to-date.

Traditionally, organizations have relied upon in-house IT personnel to manage their firewalls. However, growing complexity, the rapid adoption of cloud-based services and ever-increasing threats have made it difficult for IT teams to keep up with firewall management.

Why You Should Outsource Firewall Management

Managed firewall services provide better protection for your network without the headaches of in-house maintenance. Trained professionals take over the ongoing monitoring, management and support of your firewalls to ensure optimum performance availability and security. The managed services provider (MSP) helps prevent data loss, guard against malware and control network access without bogging down in-house IT personnel.

A managed firewall service provides a number of advantages:

• Security expertise. The MSP has a team of security experts who stay on top of the latest threats and make sure your firewalls are capable of stopping them. They also perform preventive maintenance and rapidly troubleshoot and resolve any problems that do occur.
• 24x7 monitoring. Your firewalls are monitored continuously, not just when your IT manager is in the office. Any potential issues are addressed immediately, not the next business day.
• In-house IT relief. Security is a top concern for every organization and requires significant resources to maintain. A managed firewall service shifts some of this responsibility to the MSP, allowing your in-house IT department to spend more time implementing solutions and services that create competitive advantages.

How GDS Can Help

GDS offers two managed firewall services that deliver these benefits and more. Our cybersecurity experts help customers deploy and configure industry-leading firewalls, and harden them according to best practices. We then take on the monitoring and management of your firewall infrastructure, utilizing the state-of-the-art tools in our Security Operations Center. We will also apply patches, assist with configuration and provide performance metrics.

A firewall is a first line of protection against attacks, blocking malicious sites and content and filters traffic to protect against Internet threats.

Our managed firewall services streamline maintenance and support, improve automation and efficiency, and reduce costs and risks. Adequate performance and capacity are assured, minimizing productivity lost due to network or system downtime and latency that impacts the user experience. You also gain greater insight into the health of your environment through real-time dashboards and historical reporting.

GDS Firewall Security Services adds the expertise of our Security Operations Center personnel to evaluate threats and notify you of any activity that warrants further investigation. GDS provides telemetry with our evaluations, along with guidance for best practices related to firewall configurations and operations. The GDS support team assists in all moves, adds and changes you need.

Many organizations lack the resources or budget to hire and retain security specialists who can monitor and manage firewalls and keep them up to date. Contact GDS for a confidential consultation to discuss how our managed firewall services can boost your organization’s security posture.

Benefits of Managed IT Services from Global Data Systems

• Strategic Managed IT: We help you solve your technology related business problems.
• Connectivity: We get you reliable, secure connectivity anywhere in the western hemisphere in 48 hours.
• Support: When you need help simply call our 24x7x365 support number.
• Billing: Instead of managing hundreds of vendors - get one, easy to read bill from GDS.

Contact Managed Services Provider, Global Data Systems >