Improved network segmentation has reduced lateral movement while the interface still needs modernizationFor threat prevention, I noticed on another customer that there were repeated scanning and exploit attempts against some public-facing service running on HTTPS. I configured Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall to handle IPS by enabling it with critical and high severity signatures only to reduce false positives. I turned on IP reputation filtering to filter out known malicious networks, applied rate limiting on specific services in the DMZ, and logged events centrally for correlation. As a result, exploit attempts were much less than before, being blocked before reaching the back-end servers from the firewall itself, with no performance degradation on the applications. The security team received clear and actionable logs that were centralized, so they knew what was happening all the time. Strong network segmentation is my favorite feature that Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall offers. The policies are very deterministic and readable, and it has excellent east-west blocking and least privilege architecture. Application awareness identifies traffic beyond just the port itself; I can identify the application using a specific port and block risky applications even if they use allowed ports, which is great for environments with shadow IT. The integrated threat prevention is also very good, with IPS featuring well-tuned signatures and reputation-based filtering that blocks known bad actors before they can touch any applications. It supports both IPsec and SSL VPN tunnels, along with site-to-site, client-to-site, and hybrid cloud links, integrating well with Active Directory and LDAP. Additionally, centralized log management and reporting are very actionable and structured, with clarity in the policies for auditing. Overall, its stability and reliability are commendable. A real example of how Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall's readable policies and application awareness features made my work easier was fixing a flat network problem without breaking actual applications. I inherited an environment where users, application servers, and databases were loosely segmented, with port-based and messy firewall rules. Security audits flagged lateral movement risks, and application owners were scared of outages if I tightened security too much. Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall made it easy by providing very easy-to-read and logical policies. I built policies that are clear, showing communications from the user zone to the application zone to specific applications, or from the app zone to the database zone, using only required database protocols. By default, I applied a deny rule between zones unless explicitly allowed by the readable rules I implemented. The policy view clarified who talks to whom, which rules exist, why they exist, and the business function they support, effectively stopping port abuse. Security posture has definitely improved greatly since using Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall. From a flat or semi-flat network, I now have clear zone-based segmentation, with increased operational efficiency. The admins using the firewall have rules that are easy to read and intent-based, making changes easier to review and approve. There is less fear that one wrong rule could break production and fewer outages caused by security changes, without hidden matches or rule shadowing surprises. Clear hit count visibility helps me clean unused rules, leading to much fewer outages caused by changes on the firewalls. The centralized log management with supported log types provides better visibility for the SOC team and the SIEM team, as Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall sends very easy-to-parse and search clear logs to the SOC team. I did see measurable, defensible results after using Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall, including fewer security incidents reaching the back-end servers. This reduction is due to strong segmentation, application awareness, and IPS features, leading to a 60 to 70 percent reduction in security alerts that actually reach the servers. DMZ exploit attempts dropped to near zero, and no lateral movement incidents were detected post network segmentation. Additionally, overall SOC efficiency improved due to well-structured and contextual logs reflecting clear policy intent, resulting in a 35 to 40 percent reduction in mean time to triage. SOC analysts stopped chasing noise and false positives, as they had much clearer logs to use confidently.
