Stateful vs. Stateless Firewalls
Stateful firewalls are capable of monitoring and detecting states of all traffic on a network to track and defend based on traffic patterns and flows. Stateless firewalls, however, only focus on individual packets, using preset rules to filter traffic.
Difference between Traditional Firewall and Next Generation Firewall
Traditional Firewall:
A traditional firewall is network security device which typically provides stateful inspection of network traffic that entering or exiting point inside network based on state, port, and protocol. So in simple traditional firewall mainly controls flow of control. It has Virtual Private Network (VPN) capabilities. But now days traditional firewalls are not so effective to offer all required protection to deal with so advanced and various types of cyber threats those are happening today.
Next Generation Firewall:
A Next Generation firewall is network security device which not only typically provides stateful inspection of network traffic that entering or exiting point inside network based on state, port, and protocol but also includes far more additional features than traditional firewall. In short Next Generation Firewall termed as only NGFW.
The additional features which are included in Next Generation Firewall are as follows –
- Application awareness and control
- Integrated intrusion prevention
- Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)
- Integrated Intrusion Protection System (IPS)
- Cloud-delivered threat intelligence
- Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Inspection and Secure Shell (SSH) Control
- Sandbox Integration
- No impact of list of protection enabled on performance
- Advanced Threat Protection
- Web Filtering
- Antivirus, Antispam, Antimalware
Difference between Traditional Firewall and Next Generation Firewall:
| S.No. | TRADITIONAL FIREWALL | NEXT GENERATION FIREWALL |
|---|---|---|
| 01. | Traditional firewall mainly provides stateful inspection of incoming and outgoing network traffic that entering or exiting point inside network. | Traditional firewall provides stateful inspection of incoming and outgoing network traffic that entering or exiting point inside network along with many additional features. |
| 02. | Traditional firewall is old firewall security system. | Next Generation firewall is advanced firewall security system. |
| 03. | It provides partial application visibility and application control. | It provides fully application visibility and application control. |
| 04. | Traditional Firewall works on layer 2 to Layer 4. | Next Generation Firewall works on layer 2 to Layer 7. |
| 05. | It does not support application level awareness. | It supports application level awareness. |
| 06. | Reputation and identity services are not supported in it. | Reputation and identity services are supported in it. |
| 07. | In traditional firewall separately managing security tools is expensive. | In next generation firewall it is easy to install and configure integrated security tools and reduces administrative cost. |
| 08. | It does not provide complete package of security technologies. | It provides complete package of security technologies. |
| 09. | Traditional firewall can not decrypt and inspect SSL traffic. | Next Generation Firewall can decrypt and inspect SSL traffic in both in and out direction. |
| 10. | It supports Network Address Translation(NAT), Port Address Translation (PAT) and Virtual Private Network (VPN). | It extends the functionality of Network Address Translation(NAT), Port Address Translation (PAT) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) and makes integration of new threat management technology like sandboxing. |
| 11. | Integrated Intrusion Protection System (IPS) and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) are deployed separately. | Integrated Intrusion Protection System (IPS) and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) are fully integrated with it. |