60% of Respondents Believe Firewalls are Ineffective in Stopping Cyberattacks Against Applications, Data Centres, and Data in the Cloud; Lack of Flexibility Hinders Digital Transformation Initiatives
According to a new report, more than 60% of organisations believe that legacy firewalls are ineffective in preventing damaging cyberattacks against applications, data centres, and data in the cloud. As a result, 53% of survey respondents are actively looking to replace legacy firewalls with modern security solutions that are more cost-effective, provide greater flexibility and can match the speed and agility that digital transformation requires.
The “Rethink Firewalls: Security and Agility for the Modern Enterprise” report, conducted by Ponemon on behalf of Guardicore, surveyed more than 600 security professionals in the U.S. to gain insight into how legacy firewalls are used in the modern enterprise. Digital transformation and the rapid adoption of cloud infrastructure has pushed the boundaries of traditional network security tools. The report demonstrates how legacy security technologies – such as network and ‘next-gen’ firewalls – hinder agility and fail to secure data and applications across data centres and cloud environments.
“The findings of the report reflect what many CISOs and security professionals already know – digital transformation has rendered the legacy firewall obsolete,” said Pavel Gurvich, co-founder and CEO, Guardicore. “As organisations adopt cloud, IoT, and DevOps to become more agile, antiquated network security solutions are not only ineffective at stopping attacks on these properties, but actually hinder the desired flexibility and speed they are hoping to attain.”
Read More: Strengthening Cyber Security Framework Boosts the Digital Transformation Effectiveness
Rethink Firewalls – Key Study Takeaways
- Legacy Firewalls are Failing to Enable Zero Trust: Zero Trust has emerged as an effective framework to help modern organisations protect cloud infrastructure, distributed workforces and applications. According to the report, while 49% of respondents have implemented a Zero Trust model of security to some extent, 63% believe their organisations’ legacy firewalls are failing to enable Zero Trust across the enterprise.
- Firewalls Fail to Stop Attacks, Leave Organisations Vulnerable: Legacy security technologies fail to minimise the attack surface and increasingly leave organisations vulnerable to cyberattacks. 61% of respondents say their organisations’ firewalls could not contain a breach of its data centre perimeter, while 64% believe that legacy firewalls are ineffective against modern attacks like ransomware.
- Legacy Firewalls Hinder Agility, Cost Too Much to Maintain: Organisations increasingly believe that firewalls are damaging to digital transformation, lacking the flexibility and speed required for modern environments. Fifty seven percent of respondents indicate it can take from three weeks to more than a month to change firewall rules to accommodate an update or new application. This is driving firewall attrition, with more than 53% organisations moving away from firewalls due to costs and complexity.
Read More: Cyber risk increases due to digital transformation
“The findings of the report shows the number one concern of firewall buyers is whether they can actually get next-gen firewalls to work in their environments. As organisations move into the cloud, legacy firewalls do not have the scalability, flexibility or reliability to secure these environments, driving up costs while failing to reduce the attack surface,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, Chairman and Founder, Ponemon Institute. “As a result, organisations are reaching the conclusion that firewalls are simply not worth the time and effort and they’re actually negatively impacting digital transformation initiatives. This is driving a move toward modern security solutions like micro-segmentation, that can more effectively enforce security at the edge.”
On Oct. 27th at 1 p.m. ET, Guardicore will be hosting a webinar with Guardicore customer David Stennett, Sr. Infrastructure Engineer, The Honey Baked Ham Company, and Larry Ponemon, Ph.D, Chairman and Founder, Ponemon Institute, to discuss the findings and strategies for how organisations can replace legacy firewalls with modern security solutions like micro-segmentation for greater flexibility, control and security of data centres, applications and cloud environments.
