Business Firewalls — Deployed, Configured, and Managed by PIP
A firewall configured once and never reviewed is not a firewall. It’s a false sense of security.
Talk to PIP about your firewalls →Why firewalls matter — and why managing them matters more
Firewalls are the primary network security device between a private network and the internet. Firewalls monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, inspect data packets against security rules, and block traffic that violates the policy the business has defined. That much is baseline. The real question is what types of firewalls a business deploys — and whether anyone is managing those firewalls after installation.
Modern business firewalls have moved well beyond simple packet filtering. Next-generation firewalls inspect encrypted traffic, identify specific applications, run an intrusion prevention system, and integrate threat intelligence feeds — all in a single device. The types of firewalls available now range from traditional hardware firewalls to virtual firewalls, cloud-native firewalls, and firewall as a service — each suited to a different architecture.
But the hardware is only half the equation. Firewalls running default rule sets, unreviewed policies, and outdated firmware leave the network exposed — regardless of the device’s capabilities. PIP’s managed firewall service covers deployment, policy design, and ongoing security services: rule reviews, firmware updates, log monitoring, and firewall protection that evolves as advanced threats change.
What is a firewall in networking?
Firewalls are network security devices that monitor and control network traffic based on predefined security rules. Firewalls sit between trusted internal networks and untrusted external networks, inspecting individual data packets as they pass through. Each network packet is compared against the firewall rules — data packets that match allow rules pass through, and data packets that match deny rules are dropped.
Firewalls evaluate network connections using criteria including IP address, port number, protocol, and destination IP addresses. In NGFW, application identity is also evaluated. Network address translation (NAT) is a core function of most firewalls — masking internal IP addresses from external networks and managing how devices on the private network access the internet.
Firewalls protect networks by blocking malicious traffic, preventing unauthorised access to network resources, and controlling outgoing traffic based on security policies.
Firewalls monitor traffic continuously, logging active network connections, triggering alerts on anomalous patterns, and maintaining records of all network communications. Outbound traffic is controlled alongside inbound traffic — firewalls govern outgoing network traffic based on the same policy framework that controls inbound access. Firewalls protect sensitive data by ensuring only authorised network traffic reaches internal systems.
Traditional types of firewalls
The foundational types of firewalls that modern firewalls are built on. Understanding these is essential for evaluating what a business needs.
Packet Filtering Firewalls
Packet filtering firewalls are the earliest type of firewalls. These firewalls inspect individual data packets against a rule set based on IP address, port, and protocol. Packet filtering operates at the network layer and does not track the state of network connections — each data packet is evaluated independently, with no context of the broader session.
Packet filtering firewalls are fast and lightweight, but limited. Because packet filtering treats every network packet in isolation, these firewalls cannot detect attacks spread across multiple data packets. Packet filtering firewalls remain relevant as the first-pass filter in layered firewall architectures, but alone they are insufficient for modern business firewalls.
Stateful Inspection Firewalls
Stateful inspection firewalls — also called stateful firewalls — track the state of active network connections. Where packet filtering firewalls evaluate each data packet independently, stateful inspection maintains a state table of established connections. This allows return traffic from legitimate sessions through without requiring explicit allow rules for every return packet.
Stateful inspection firewalls compare inbound and outbound traffic against the connection state table, providing deeper protection than packet filtering alone — analysing incoming and outgoing data in context. They understand whether a data packet is part of an established connection, a new connection attempt, or unsolicited incoming traffic. Stateful inspection is the standard foundation for business firewalls and forms the base layer of next-generation firewalls.
Proxy Firewalls
Proxy firewalls — also called application proxy firewalls — act as an intermediary between internal users and external networks. All traffic passes through the proxy server, which evaluates requests on behalf of the user. They inspect traffic at the application layer, giving deeper visibility into web traffic and web applications than stateful inspection alone.
The proxy server maintains no direct connection between internal and external networks, providing strong isolation. They can filter web traffic, enforce web application policies, and cache content. The trade-off is latency — proxy firewalls add overhead compared to stateful inspection firewalls because every connection is rebuilt at the proxy server layer.
Traditional Firewalls vs Modern Firewalls
Traditional firewalls — packet filtering and stateful inspection firewalls — operate primarily on network-layer attributes: IP addresses, ports, and protocols. Traditional firewalls do not inspect encrypted traffic or identify specific applications. As encrypted traffic has become the norm and application-layer threats have grown, traditional firewalls alone are insufficient for modern business networks. Next-generation firewalls address these limitations.
Modern types of firewalls
The firewalls PIP actually deploys — and the types of firewalls that define the current business security landscape.
Next-Generation Firewalls
Next-generation firewalls go beyond stateful inspection to include deep packet inspection, application awareness, and threat intelligence. NGFW platforms identify applications regardless of port or protocol — blocking or throttling specific applications rather than just IP addresses and ports.
They perform deep packet inspection on encrypted traffic using SSL/TLS inspection. Built-in intrusion prevention systems (IPS) detect and block known attack patterns in real time. Advanced threat protection, application control, and URL filtering are standard in NGFW platforms. They are the current standard for business deployments — replacing traditional firewalls in most managed environments.
Web Application Firewalls
Web application firewalls protect web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP/HTTPS traffic between web applications and the internet. Web application firewalls defend against attacks targeting web applications — SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and application-layer DDoS.
Web application firewalls operate at the application layer rather than the network layer, making them complementary to NGFW rather than replacements. Businesses hosting web applications or customer portals benefit from web application firewalls alongside their network firewalls.
Virtual Firewalls
Virtual firewalls are software-based firewalls deployed in virtualised and cloud environments. They protect workloads where hardware-based firewalls are not applicable. These firewalls provide the same inspection and NGFW capabilities as physical hardware, in a software-defined deployment.
Virtual firewalls are used in hybrid environments where workloads span on-premises infrastructure and cloud services. As an internal firewall within virtualised networks, they segment traffic between workloads just as physical hardware segments traffic at the perimeter.
Cloud-Native Firewalls
Cloud-native firewalls are delivered as a managed cloud service without physical hardware — protecting distributed workforces accessing cloud resources. These firewalls scale automatically with traffic volume.
The cloud-native delivery model means businesses consume protection without managing hardware. Cloud-native firewalls integrate with the environment natively, protecting traffic across services and serving as network-based firewalls for cloud-first architectures.
Hybrid Mesh Firewalls
Hybrid mesh firewalls unify firewall protection across on-premises hardware, virtual firewalls, and cloud-native firewalls from a centralised management plane. Hybrid mesh firewalls enforce consistent security policies across the entire network — physical offices, remote workers, and cloud workloads.
As business networks have become distributed, hybrid mesh firewalls address the need for centralized management of firewalls across multiple environments. Security policies applied through hybrid mesh firewalls ensure consistent rules regardless of where traffic originates — making them the natural evolution for businesses running firewalls across data center, office, and environments.
Hardware firewalls vs software firewalls
| Hardware Firewalls | Software Firewalls | |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Dedicated physical network security device at the network perimeter | Software-based firewall installed on individual computers or servers |
| Protects | The entire network — all devices behind the hardware are protected | The host device only — each software firewall protects one endpoint |
| Typical use | Primary firewall layer for business premises; they process all traffic before it enters the private network | Endpoint protection; software firewalls supplement the primary layer for defence in depth |
| Performance | Dedicated hardware — no impact on endpoint performance; network performance depends on firewall sizing | Shares host resources — software-based firewalls consume CPU and memory on the device they protect |
| Management | Managed centrally by PIP as part of the network; firmware updates, rule reviews, log monitoring | Managed per device; policy pushed via endpoint management tools |
For business networks, dedicated hardware is the primary firewall layer. Software firewalls on individual devices supplement the hardware layer for endpoint protection. Virtual firewalls and cloud-native firewalls extend protection where physical hardware is not applicable. Most businesses need both types of firewalls working together — hardware at the perimeter and software at the endpoint.
Firewall rules, policies, and why they decay
Firewall Rules
Firewall rules define what traffic firewalls allow or block — based on IP address, port, protocol, application, user identity, and content type. Firewalls evaluate rules in sequence; the first matching rule determines whether the data packet is permitted or dropped. Security rules are as important as the firewalls enforcing them — well-specified rules on basic hardware outperform poorly configured firewalls on advanced hardware.
Firewall Policies
Firewall policies define the organisation’s security intent — what internal users can access, what external traffic is permitted, how inbound and outbound traffic is handled, and how security policies are applied across network segments. Policy enforcement is ongoing. Firewall policies must evolve as the business changes: new applications, new users, new cloud services, and evolving threats all require firewall rule and policy updates.
Poorly maintained firewalls accumulate rule sets over years without review — unused rules, overly permissive rules, and rules created for one-time access that were never removed. Outdated rules are one of the most common security vulnerabilities in business firewalls, and the firewall remains a liability rather than a protection when its policy no longer matches the network it defends.
Ongoing Maintenance
Firewall management includes regular rule reviews, firmware and IPS signature updates, log monitoring for potential threats and anomalous traffic, and policy changes documented with change control. Firewalls log every network connection, every blocked attempt, and every potential threat pattern — analysing those firewall logs is part of ongoing security monitoring. Without this maintenance cycle, even next-generation firewalls degrade into expensive, unmanaged hardware.
Firewalls in cloud environments require the same rule discipline as on-premises hardware — policy drift affects virtual firewalls and cloud-native deployments just as much as physical devices. They protect data and network performance only when the rules behind them keep pace with evolving threats and network changes. Outgoing network traffic based on outdated rules can expose sensitive data, and firewalls with permissive outbound policies are among the most common findings in network security audits.
PIP’s approach to business firewalls
PIP deploys business-grade firewalls — hardware firewalls at the perimeter, virtual firewalls for cloud environments, and NGFW for businesses needing application control and encrypted traffic inspection. Each network firewall is deployed as a network security device within a broader managed network service, not as a standalone project. Every network firewall is configured to address advanced threats specific to the business, with advanced threat protection enabled from day one.
Every firewall deployment begins with a policy design session: what traffic needs to be permitted, what should be blocked by default, how VLAN segments interact, and how remote workers access the network through secure access VPN. PIP does not deploy firewalls with default rule sets — security rules and policies are written for the specific environment, not copied from a template.
Ongoing: firmware and security signature updates, IPS signature updates, log monitoring, rule reviews, and policy changes with documented change control. PIP manages firewalls as part of the entire network — firewall policy aligns with VLAN segmentation, network access control, and centralised monitoring across the data center and office. The firewall remains current because it is actively managed, not because someone remembered to check.
Firewall as a service: PIP’s managed firewall service is delivered on a subscription basis. Businesses do not need to purchase and manage firewall hardware themselves — PIP provisions, configures, and manages firewalls under the service agreement, giving businesses enterprise-grade firewall protection and advanced threat protection without the capital expenditure of buying dedicated firewall hardware outright.
“The most common finding when PIP takes over a managed network is a firewall with the original vendor default policies still in place — sometimes with rules accumulated over years that were never removed when they were no longer needed. A firewall rule set that hasn’t been reviewed in three years is not protecting the network it was designed for. PIP’s firewall audit is the first task on every new managed network engagement.”
That pattern — firewalls deployed by one provider and never managed by anyone — is the norm, not the exception. The firewall solution only works when the policy behind it is reviewed, the firmware is current, the IPS signatures are up to date, and the logs are actually being read. Firewalls that sit unmanaged become a false perimeter.
— PIP Network Engineer
That pattern — firewalls installed correctly and managed never — is the gap PIP closes. Talk to PIP about your firewalls, and the first step is always an audit of what’s deployed, what policy is running, and what needs to change.
Firewalls — common questions
In networking, firewalls are security devices that monitor and control network traffic between a trusted internal network and untrusted external networks. Firewalls inspect data packets against predefined rules — allowing legitimate traffic and blocking anything that matches threat patterns or violates policy.
Modern business firewalls are typically NGFW platforms combining deep packet inspection, stateful inspection, and application control. Firewalls are the primary network security device at the network perimeter, and they protect networks, protect data, and protect servers from malicious traffic and malicious software.
The main types of firewalls are: packet filtering firewalls (inspect individual data packets against IP address and port rules), stateful inspection firewalls (track active network connections), proxy (act as intermediary between internal and external networks), NGFW (deep packet inspection, application control, intrusion prevention), web application firewalls WAF (protect web applications from application-layer attacks), virtual firewalls (software-based, for cloud), cloud-native, and hybrid mesh firewalls (unified management across hardware, virtual, and cloud-native deployments).
For most Sydney businesses, next-generation firewalls are the standard deployment, with virtual firewalls and cloud-native firewalls added for cloud and hybrid environments.
An NGFW combines connection-state tracking with encrypted traffic inspection, application awareness, user identity tracking, and threat intelligence integration. NGFW platforms identify and control specific applications regardless of port or protocol, inspect encrypted traffic, and block advanced threats that traditional firewalls cannot detect.
NGFW is the current standard for business firewalls, replacing traditional firewalls by adding application-layer visibility, an intrusion detection system, intrusion prevention, and centralised management to the stateful inspection foundation.
Most businesses need both types of firewalls. Hardware firewalls protect the network perimeter — positioned between the internet and the private network, the hardware inspects all incoming and outgoing traffic before it reaches internal network devices. Software firewalls run on individual computers and servers, providing a second layer of firewall protection at the endpoint.
For business premises, hardware firewalls are essential. Software-based firewalls on individual devices supplement them for defence in depth. Virtual and cloud-native firewalls extend protection where physical hardware is not applicable. Sensitive data, network performance, and secure access all depend on firewalls working across every layer.
Your firewalls deserve active management
If your firewalls were installed and never reviewed, or you’re not sure what policy is running on them, that gap is exactly what PIP’s firewall solution closes.