Best Practices for Data Centers: Firewall Configuration

Data center security is essential for each and every business which stores sensitive data. The IT infrastructure is prone to cyber threats without an effective firewall setup. A correctly arranged firewall can protect your data center against unauthorized access, malware, and cyber attacks.

For businesses that maintain data centers, firewall rental offers a cost-effective method of expanding security without the need for huge upfront spending. Let’s take a look at properly configuring firewalls to help secure a data center.

1. Perimeter Security

When it comes to a data center, a perimeter firewall is the first line of defense. This is where you gate what traffic is allowed into your IT infra. Insecure perimeter firewall configurations can expose your entire system to cyberattacks.

Here’s how to protect the perimeter:

• Only allow traffic that is needed – a good rule of thumb is to block all incoming and outgoing traffic by default and only allow traffic for services that you actually use. Allow and expose only the needed ports, protocols, and services.
• Geo-blocking – To minimize threats, block IPs from high-risk countries if your business does not require international access.
• As an intrusion prevention system (IPS) – Finds and stops known attack patterns from entering the system.
• Use Stateful Inspection – This allows only valid connections and protects against session hijacking.
• WAF (Web Application Firewalls) – Protect front applications against SQL injections, XS attacks, and other web threats.
• High-Performance Firewall – By renting a high-performance firewall, businesses can close off their perimeter without a large hardware investment.

2. Internal Traffic Filtering

Once traffic passes the perimeter, it should be filtered again so attackers can’t roam freely inside the data center.

Here’s what to do:

• Micro-segmentation – Segregate the network into smaller security zones so that, in the event of a breach to one, the attacker cannot reach every one of the systems.
• Principle of Least Privilege Access – Grant systems and users access to only the resources that they truly need.
• Use VLANs for Segmentation – Keep sensitive data separated from the whole network to limit exposure.
• Facilitate East-West Traffic Filtering – Traffic in the data center must be monitored too, not just incoming and outbound traffic.
• Prevent Ports Communication Between Servers – Configure firewalls with a default policy that denies all incoming and outgoing communication between servers unless there is a specific need.

A managed firewall rental enables companies to expand internal security without buying and maintaining pricey hardware.

3. DDoS Mitigation

Flooding a data center with massive traffic is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which slows us down or shuts us down. Firewalls are instrumental in stopping and preventing such attacks.

Guidelines to protect against DDoS attacks:

• Implement Rate Limiting – This means limiting the number of requests that can come from a single source, thus avoiding traffic overload.
• DPI – Don’t just block known host/IPs.
• Deploy an Anti-DDoS Firewall – Certain firewalls offer integrated DDoS defense, filtering out malicious traffic before it impacts your servers.
• Deploy Cloud DDoS Protection Services – For larger attacks, cloud-based filtering and scrubbing solutions protect against downtime.
• SYN Flood Protection – Protects against attackers trying to flood the system with half-open TCP connections.

Companies who lease firewalls with integrated DDoS relief obtain organization-wide safety and security along with collaboration for the price of physical hardware.

4. Secure Remote Access

As remote work increases, so do IT security issues. Access to the data center remotely needs to be well controlled to avoid unauthorized entry.

Get your remote access secured with:

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) VPN – Users must verify attempts using additional layers of authentication.
• Use Encrypted Connection – Any remote access should use TLS to encrypt the data being sent over the connection.
• Limit Remote Access to Only Approved Locations – Prevent access from untrusted or potential risk areas.
• Limit Privileges for Remote Users – Provide remote employees access only to the systems they need, nothing more.
• Log and Monitor Remote Session Qualities – This entails tracking every login attempt and connection request to examine for abnormal data.

Simply put, companies can rent firewalls with VPN capabilities, thereby permitting them to ensure the safety of their remote connections without having to figure out how to configure complex processes on their own.

5. Threat Monitoring

No matter how strong the firewall, 24/7 surveillance is a must. Threats evolve, and operational threat detection ensures bad actors can be recognized before damage occurs.

Some key monitoring techniques are:

• Activate Real-Time Alerts – Configure notifications for aberrant traffic patterns, unsuccessful login attempts, or unauthorized access attempts.
• SIEM Solutions – Security Information and Event Management Solutions collect security logs from firewalls and other security devices.
• Conduct Periodic Firewall Audits – Conduct regular assessments to confirm that firewall rules are current and in line with security requirements.
• Leverage AI-Driven Threat Detection – Unlike old-fashioned firewalls, machine learning-based detection identifies new attack patterns.
• Automated Log Analysis – Checking thousands of logs manually is a difficult task; this is where automated tools come into play.

Please keep in mind that you are reading this all the way up to October 2023.

Final Thoughts

A properly configured setup of firewalls is a key aspect of data center security. Each layer of defense, from perimeter security to threat monitoring, plays a crucial role. Since firewalls, routers, and other network security appliances are sometimes expensive for small business budgets, renting one will help them protect their networks without breaking the bank.

A firewall is not a plug-and-play solution – ongoing updates, monitoring, and fine-tuning are necessary to stave off threats. As a result, your data center is safe from cyber attacks.