Blog
Top Trends in Managed Firewall Service that SMBs must look out for in 2024
July 18, 2022
Industry Commentary
So you run a small business facing an unmanageable number of cybersecurity threats, and you’re afraid for your business. Unlike your larger competitors, you don’t have extra staff or know-how to manage these complex cybersecurity issues. What do you do? You turn to a Managed Firewall Service.
A Managed Firewall Service is a combination of hardware and software, backed by a team of experts, that monitors and responds immediately to cyber threats. This team combines engineers from the vendors themselves, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that install and monitor security applications, and a dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC). This combination brings you the needed security expertise and awareness without the significant ongoing investment that it previously took.
Here are some Managed Firewall Service trends to look out for in 2022.
According to Sanchez & The Dell’Oro Group, SaaS and virtual firewalls are predicted to grow by a whopping 25% CAGR between 2021 and 2026. Traditional, buy-and-own physical firewalls are not expected to grow much, if at all. Firewall-as-a service is eating their lunch. The world is going subscription!
The rise of remote work directly conflicts with the need for a consistent security posture across the business. Most employees don’t associate their home computers and entertainment devices with corporate security threats, and frequently don’t even bother securing them.
This carelessness could become a tool for hackers, who can gain access to your network through these employees. Educating the end-user is important: according to The 2022 State of IT, 76% of companies surveyed plan to invest in security training tools for their employees.
You may think that just buying and installing a firewall will keep you safe. Not at all! Even the most powerful firewalls need to be properly configured, maintained and monitored. Chances are that your current staff will be out of their depth when trying to manage the corporate firewall; this is is why even large enterprises are resorting to bringing on managed security service providers (MSSPs), rather than relying on their in-house staff. It just makes more security sense, and saves time and money into the bargain.
Keyloggers and password-cracking software are now easily accessible to even the most unskilled cybercrackers; so insurance companies are demanding that Multi-Factor Authentication be used across the board in order to put a policy in place.
MFA is only slightly more tedious than a basic username/password, but offers an order of magnitude more security. The 2022 State of IT survey indicates that 68% of businesses are planning to mandate MFA in the next year. Shouldn’t you?
It’s 2022, the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, but many SMBs continue to support a work-from-home or hybrid work policy. The employee retention and efficiency gains justify at least some level of work-from-home. However, remote workers are far more susceptible to cybersecurity threats, and can easily compromise the entire corporate network.
Uplevel comes to the rescue with its robust, cloud-managed firewall as a service; its powerful VPN technology; and its Secure Remote Worker gateways, that allow the MSP or MSSP to extend the corporate security perimeter into the home – without on-site visits or interfering with the employee-owned devices!
Uplevel Systems, as a small business IT infrastructure managed service provider, enables any of these options. Uplevel’s subscription offering is the most popular with SMBs, but some prefer Uplevel’s new equipment purchase program and use a CapEx model.
