Next-Generation Firewall Market Analysis, Growth Opportunities and Recent Trends

Posted by Devanshu Shrivastava on March 16th, 2020

The growing IoT usage is a key trend in the next-generation firewall market. Companies are rapidly embracing the IoT technology to make better use of the asset sharing model, outcome-based model, pay-per-usage model, and other advanced business models. Additionally, IoT also helps businesses gain real-time operational insights into security issues and equipment monitoring. However, IoT devices give rise to data security issues, as they are connected to the internet. Thus, to combat the various applications, protocols, and internet-based security threats associated with IoT, companies are leveraging NGFW.

The most important driver for the next-generation firewall market is the increase in the number of cyber-attacks. For instance, the U.S. witnessed 2.5 million cases of cybercrime in 2017, which rose to 2.9 million in 2018. To combat the growing threat of cyber-attacks, which are themselves evolving and becoming more destructive, NGFW is being leveraged, as it has several advantages over traditional firewall. It offers better data and security breach protection, complete network visibility, deployment flexibility, and ease of integration with the existing IT infrastructure.

Traditional firewall works on web protocols, which is why it inefficiently distinguishes between the various types of internet traffic, such as that in the form of network packet data and legitimate business applications, which is why it either rejects or accepts all internet traffic. In the age of virtual IT infrastructure, NGFW offers an additional protection layer, such as application level inspection and intrusion detection, and improves the intelligence of traditional firewall via protocol protection.

In 2019, the next-generation firewall market was dominated by North America, on account of the high cybercrime rate, presence of several market players, rapid adoption of cloud computing, and initiatives launched for making public data safe. During the forecast period, the highest CAGR is expected in Asia-Pacific (APAC), as a result of the increasing cyber threat, number of small and medium enterprises, and focus of regional governments on the security of data.

Hence, with cyber-attacks becoming more devastating and difficult to handle, the need for advanced cyber security solutions, including NGFW, will also surge.