Gateway Security Devices
Justin Opatrny · 2012
This chapter discusses evolution of gateway security devices (GSD) as a combined security device. It highlights that as communications capabilities and functionality demands increased, so too did the firewall's need to inspect and enforce allowed paths using more complex protocols and require ever-increasing throughput. This evolution transformed the firewall into a true GSD—able to provide allowed path enforcement using a combination of techniques which once required additional security devices to accomplish. Today, properly selected and deployed GSDs work as a security layer to handle increasingly complex scenarios. The GSD retains all of the earlier firewall-based functionality such as allowed-path control, virtual private network services, and network address translation while providing the flexibility to integrate additional services designed to provide visibility into and protection from a multitude of threats. The integration of proxy services, application and content control, and intrusion prevention allows GSD deployments to simplify the network-security architecture and opens up new inspection and protection opportunities.