Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Firewalls were designed to guard the edge of one office network. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is pitched at a different problem: organizations whose users, data and applications are spread across branch offices, data centers and several public clouds. The vendor, Barracuda Networks, says it redefines the firewall from a perimeter box into a distributed part of the network that scales across any number of locations and applications.

Where it can be deployed

Barracuda says the firewalls can be placed across multiple physical locations and also run in Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud Platform. The same product therefore covers on-premises sites, hybrid arrangements and multi-cloud deployments, with the stated aim of protecting data, users and workloads wherever they reside.

Defending against known and unknown attacks

The base layer is a set of next-generation firewall technologies that inspect traffic as it flows, aimed at web attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, at denial of service, and at malware of the trojan, virus, worm and spyware kinds. For newer attacks the company adds a cloud-hosted Advanced Threat Protection service. It argues that signatures alone cannot keep up with threats that change shape, so detection is layered, running from threat signatures through behavioral and heuristic checks and code inspection to a full sandbox. The service is aimed at zero-day and ransomware attacks, and Barracuda describes it as working without friction for administrators.

Shared threat intelligence

Advanced Threat Protection is connected to a global threat intelligence network. Barracuda says it collects data from millions of sources across network, email, website and browser attacks, and that once a threat is identified the knowledge is shared with every security product connected to the service.

Edge computing

Many applications now depend on real-time processing and cannot tolerate delay, so more companies run edge computing at remote locations. The vendor positions the firewall as supplying the security and connectivity those sites need, and a central management console called the Firewall Control Center provides control, monitoring and policy enforcement across large numbers of distributed sites.

Who the page is written for

The product page opens with the case for protection against cybercrime and speaks to security and network teams responsible for hybrid and multi-cloud estates, including schools and universities that need to keep student networks safe from ransomware.