20 Best Network Security Solutions + FAQs

The best security posture is a multi-layered security posture. Enterprise security leaders understand that no single tool or solution can provide best-in-class security to an entire organization on its own.

As a result, security leaders continually invest in new security tools and platforms to address a growing list of emerging cyber threats like ransomware, credential-based attacks, and malicious insiders.

However, not all network security solutions work together smoothly. The average enterprise uses more than 75 different security tools to protect against cyber attacks.

This can create a complex environment that is difficult to manage. Security leaders need to simplify their tech stack and focus on the apps, managed services, and security controls that produce reliable results.

We’ve gathered a list of the top 20 types of network security platform — from firewall technology to access management, SIEM platforms and more. Discover some of the most promising security technologies on the market right now.

1 . AlgoSec

AlgoSec is a policy management platform that enables the world’s most complex organizations to gain visibility, reduce risk, and make changes across hybrid networks.

• AlgoSec supports both on-premises and cloud-based firewall deployments, enabling security teams to optimize network traffic and protect sensitive information from hackers.

• Organizations rely on AlgoSec to update security policies according to real-world needs with automation.

• AlgoSec is best known for its secure application connectivity and security policy across the hybrid network estate, including public cloud, private cloud, containers, and on-premises.

• AlgoSec offers a centralized platform for previewing changes to security rules, updating those rules, and gathering data on the results of those changes.

• AlgoSec’s zero touch management is a key selling point, allowing administrators to avoid misconfigurations by automating security policy changes.
  

2. Cisco

Cisco is a global leader in network security solutions, offering a wide range of products and services, including firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and VPN solutions.

Cisco is best known as a cybersecurity hardware vendor, controlling nearly half the world’s ethernet switch market and one-third of the global enterprise router market.

Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge they’re one of the most reputable providers on the market — boasting a comprehensive security portfolio, tons of integrations and the ability to scale.

Cisco’s security products are designed to work together and integrate seamlessly into existing network infrastructure, making it a solid choice for enterprises.

3. Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks is known for its next-generation firewall (NGFW) solutions and advanced threat protection services.

Some key points about Palo Alto Networks:

• AlgoSec integrates seamlessly with Palo Alto to automate application and user aware security policy management and ensure that Palo Alto Networks’ devices are properly configured.
  

• It is one of the industry’s most consistent innovators in firewall technology, providing security teams with unique capabilities that many other vendors do not.
  

• The company originally focused on hardware enterprise firewalls, but has spent years expanding to cloud-native software firewalls and other detection technologies.
  

• Its Cortex XDR solution consistently wins top placement in MITRE ATT&CK evaluations, with 100% detection and prevention scores.
  

4. Tufin

Tufin specializes in Network Security Policy Management (NSPM) solutions. The company’s primary focus is to help organizations streamline and enhance their network security operations by providing tools and platforms that improve security policy management, compliance, and automation.

Tufin’s solutions are designed to address the complexities of managing security policies in modern IT environments. This allows organizations to deploy Zero Trust architecture and manage risk more effectively.

5. Fortinet

Fortinet specializes in integrated security solutions, including NGFWs, secure SD-WAN, and endpoint security. The company is best-known for its hardware firewalls, which include advanced automation features. It also provides threat intelligence services and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions.

The company’s products are designed for easy integration in a variety of scenarios. It calls its approach to consolidating security across multiple tools and platforms the Fortinet Security Fabric.

6. CheckPoint

CheckPoint provides a variety of security solutions, including firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and security management platforms. It sells both hardware and software firewalls alongside prevention-based technologies designed for data center use.

7. FireMon

FireMon helps organizations assess, manage, and enhance the security of their network infrastructures, including firewalls, routers, switches, and cloud security configurations. It specializes in helping organizations reduce risk, manage change, and enforce compliance.

Security leaders rely on vendors like FireMon to help them identify and remediate configuration errors that introduce inefficiencies to their security posture. This also helps reduce exposure to unknown threats that may exploit vulnerabilities linked to firewall misconfiguration.

8. Symantec

Symantec, known for its Norton brand, offers network security solutions, including endpoint protection and email security. As of September 2022, both companies are brands of Gen Digital, a publicly traded parent organization.

The parent company’s products are primarily designed to address consumer cybersecurity risks. It provides a wide range of endpoint security solutions, including antivirus, email phishing protection, and more.

9. McAfee

McAfee provides a wide range of cybersecurity products and services, including network security solutions, antivirus, and threat intelligence. Many of its products focus on end-user protection and mobile security, and the company markets these products directly to users.

As part of Intel’s security division, McAfee provides organizations with managed security services through its ESM Cloud product. This product streamlines operational security and allows security teams to automate incident investigations.

10. Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks offers network security solutions, including firewalls, VPNs, and threat detection and prevention. Originally a hardware firewall vendor and competitor to Cisco, the company has expanded to provide AI-powered cloud-native security products like Mist AI.

The company’s suite of security products and technologies supports IT teams, managed security service providers, and cloud operators alike. Hardware firewalls, routers, and switches are a major component of Juniper’s overall market share, and remain the products for which the company is best known.

11. Trend Micro

Trend Micro focuses on endpoint security, cloud security, and network defense solutions. The company’s products help security teams understand, prioritize, and mitigate risk while protecting cloud-native infrastructure from cyber attacks.

Security leaders who face challenges turning Zero Trust principles into operational guidelines can rely on Trend Micro to support those changes and streamline deployment.

12. Sophos

Sophos offers a variety of security products, including firewalls, antivirus, and encryption solutions. Most of its solutions come in the form of services like the company’s managed detection and response service.

This provides on-demand security resources to organizations that need to improve security operations without investing in on-premises technology or hiring new staff.

Sophos offers productized security services in four main areas: endpoint, network, email, and cloud. Its network security services include the installation and integration of SASE-ready firewalls, switches, and routers.

13. WatchGuard

WatchGuard specializes in network security appliances, secure Wi-Fi, and multi-factor authentication. It specializes in security technologies designed to block external threats like ransomware.

The company provides separate security solutions for businesses, managed service providers, and security operations centers. These include XDR platforms, SD-WAN solutions, and threat hunting. It also offers identity security and multi-factor authentication solutions to enterprise customers that wish to improve their identity management policies.

14. Barracuda Networks

Barracuda offers security solutions for email protection, web application security, and network firewalling. It also offers enterprise-grade SASE solutions to businesses looking for accessible options for simplifying secure network access.

The Barracuda Security Service Edge allows organizations to implement the security controls of a next-generation firewall without having to spend the same amount of money that a cloud-enabled firewall implementation would otherwise cost.

15. F5 Networks

F5 Networks provides application security solutions, including web application firewalls and load balancers with security features. It offers specialized security solutions for organizations using multiple cloud providers to host apps and other tools that do not easily integrate into a unified security environment.

This enables enterprises with complex IT infrastructure to enhance web application and API security, prevent fraud and abuse, and implement Zero Trust principles. F5’s approach eliminates the need to dramatically change the organization’s internal structure to meet security and compliance needs.

16. Bitdefender

Bitdefender offers network security solutions with a focus on endpoint protection, including advanced threat detection and response. The company is best-known for its free antivirus software, which is among the most popular worldwide.

Despite being well-known for consumer cybersecurity solutions, BitDefender also offers a wide range of enterprise security tools. Its GravityZone XDR solution provides visibility to enterprise security teams while enabling analysts to respond to threats in real-time.

17. CyberArk

CyberArk specializes in privileged access security solutions, critical for securing access to network resources. It is a leader in the identity management space, providing tools and solutions that help organizations verify and authenticate user identities in complex networks.

The company uses intelligent privilege controls to map user behaviors to established identities and roles. This allows other security tools – like firewalls and XDR solutions – to enforce policies at the user identity level, instead of focusing purely on IP addresses and port information.

18. Zscaler

Zscaler is known for its cloud-native security platform, providing secure access to cloud applications and services. It is a leader in Zero Trust technology, helping security leaders operationalize Zero Trust compliance while hosting increasingly complex environments on the cloud.

Scaling zero trust architecture to meet the needs of growing enterprises is an important part of Zscaler’s overall mission – it’s in the name of the company itself. It provides AI-powered protection for users, web apps, SaaS platforms, devices, and more.

19. SentinelOne

SentinelOne is a more recent entrant to the XDR market, providing organizations with automated detection and response solutions that block unauthorized processes in real-time.

The company’s Singularity platform allows security teams to create piecemeal implementations integrating individual security tools on an as-needed basis while breaking down security silos and improving visibility across the environment.

Along with Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne leads the pack when it comes to MITRE ATT&CK evaluation scores. It is the only other company to consistently achieve 100% prevention results on these tests.

20. CrowdStrike

Crowdstrike offers comprehensive cybersecurity product bundles that include SIEM platforms, XDR solutions, and more. It provides organizations and managed service providers with a complete set of cybersecurity solutions designed to catch sophisticated threats and mitigate advanced risks.

Enterprise security teams use Crowdstrike to engage with multiple, modular security functionalities to a single, centralized platform. It provides cloud security, identity protection, and next-generation SIEM performance through its Falcon platform, and enables those different tools to integrate seamlessly with one another.

What is endpoint security and its functionality?

Endpoint security tools protect individual devices like desktop workstations, laptop computers, and mobile phones from cyber attacks. This usually means installing an endpoint security client on the device which regularly scans for malware and inspects user behaviors to detect signs of unauthorized access.

Mobile devices are particularly important to endpoint security because they can change location or get lost or stolen. Many advanced endpoint security tools offer additional features to detect malicious insiders who may have gained access to a legitimate user’s mobile device.

What are firewalls in network security?

Firewalls are devices that inspect network traffic. They typically sit at the edge of the network, protecting internal network assets from receiving malicious content from outside the network. Traditional firewalls look for packet and port data that indicates unauthorized activity and filter out connections that don’t appear legitimate.

Next-generation firewalls offer a much wider range of capabilities to security teams. They can conduct deep packet inspection and identify traffic that belongs to particular apps or users. Some NGFW devices can even detect when sensitive data is being sent out of the network and block the attempt.

What is Network Access Control (NAC)?

Network access control solutions provide visibility into the actions users take on a network. They enable security teams to enforce access management policies on devices throughout the network. Without an NAC solution in place, security tools would have a much harder time recognizing users and devices based on their usage profiles, or managing permissions and authentication policies without using a separate access control solution.

What is Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)?

Zero Trust Network Access provides secure remote access to the data, applications, and service hosted on a network. It does this through a set of strictly defined access control policies that do not extend trust to users based on their previous behaviors.

With a ZTNA policy in place, a malicious user who impersonates an employee and gains access to one segment of the network would not necessarily be able to move onto another segment of the network.

How does Zero Trust secure cloud environments within enterprise networks?

Cloud-enabled network infrastructure provides a more complex security profile than simple on-premises infrastructure. This is because the organization may not control the entire network, and it may not be able to establish boundaries for that network on its own.

Security leaders need to deploy a more complex set of firewalls, proxies, and threat detection solutions to securely access cloud-hosted assets while still complying with Zero Trust.

What is the Role of Network Segmentation in Reducing Attack Surface?

Network segmentation puts obstacles up between different parts of the network. If attackers compromise one segment of the network, they will be unable to gain instant access to the rest of the network.

Instead, they will have to spend additional time and resources breaking into other network segments. This increases the chance that security teams can detect the intruder and remediate the attack before catastrophic damage is done.

What is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)?

SASE is an emerging concept that provides a level of security appropriate to complex cloud-enabled enterprises with distributed remote users. It combines wide area network (WAN) with network security services like CASB, firewall-as-a-service, and Zero Trust into a unified service delivered through the cloud. This gives security leaders real-time data on their cloud security posture and allows them to accurately assess network risks continuously.

What is threat detection and threat intelligence?

Threat detection tools include Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), sandboxes, and Security Information and Event Management platforms:

• Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) identify and block unauthorized network activity, often in conjunction with firewalls and other security tools.

• Sandboxing allows users to download and open suspicious files in a simulated IT environment. If the file launches malware, the sandbox application will close and delete the file without allowing it to harm the system.

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms allow security operations personnel to conduct real-time monitoring and respond to threats as soon as they occur.
  

How do network security solutions help with data loss prevention? (DLP)

Network security tools prevent hackers from interacting with sensitive data and block attempts to exfiltrate that data and use it to extort users. DLP solutions help security teams identify and classify sensitive information so that they can put the appropriate security controls in place to protect it.

Without this step, it would be very difficult to tell when data breaches result in the loss of protected data because security teams would not have a clear idea of where that data is.

In addition to network security, many organizations are also relying on enterprise data backup and recovery solutions in the event of a disaster, their cloud data is preserved and easily retrievable.

Can network security solutions help with email security?

Some network security tools include valuable email security and anti-phishing features. For example, some next-generation firewalls can detect when authorized users attempt to input their login credentials on spoofed websites. They prevent the data from leaving the network and warn the user that they have been targeted by a phishing attack. Multi-layered security solutions are crucial to establishing secure workflows.

What is the role of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) in Network Security?

VPNs allow users to encrypt their traffic and interact with protected information even when they don’t trust their own internet connection. This is important for employees interacting with remote records while traveling, where hackers can easily create fake Wi-Fi hotspots designed to look like well-known public networks. Some VPNs also anonymize user identities, allowing them to access content they would not otherwise be able to.

What is IoT’s impact on Network Security?

The Internet of Things presents many challenges to operational security, especially for large enterprises and industrial organizations. IoT devices rarely benefit from the kind of built-in security protections that desktop workstations and mobile phones have, making them an easy target for hackers. Security leaders need to group IoT devices together and protect them with strict security policies enforced by high quality firewalls and other tools.

Mitigating Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS Attacks)

Hackers may attack organizations by preventing other users from accessing their services. They may even use these attacks to disrupt firewalls and create an opening through which they can launch additional attacks. Protecting network assets from DDoS attacks requires implementing firewalls that can detect these attacks and drop the malicious connections hackers are trying to make. Next-generation firewalls have additional resources available for doing this, and can even defend against complex multi-session attacks.

What are network security best practices?

Network security policies and firewall rules must balance the need for security with the need for easy and accessible workflows. If security tools prevent legitimate users from accessing the assets they need, it may impact production. Similarly, security leaders need to deploy limited resources efficiently. Automation helps ensure security team members can dedicate their time to important strategic initiatives instead of high-volume, low-impact tasks.

What is the role of Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)?

MSSPs help growing organizations enhance operational security without requiring them to build, deploy, and staff their own security operations center. This allows them to save a great deal of money compared to the cost of building in-house security capabilities. It also grants organizations access to specialist security talent they might not otherwise be able to afford. Instead of paying for unpredictable security expenditures, organizations can pay a consistent monthly fee according to the services they actually use.