In the age of digitalization, companies rely on an efficient IT department more than ever. This is why the "as a service" model has become firmly established as a way to save IT teams' time in several different areas. Now, this also applies to security. Security services in the cloud are always up to date and can adapt flexibly to each company's requirements, while minimizing the time and cost needed for maintenance and configuration. In Gartner's current Hype Cycles, the Hype Cycle for Threat-Facing Technologies, 2017 (July 2017) and the Hype Cycle for Midsize Enterprises, 2017 (July 2017), the analyst firm defines the Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) category and names it as a technology that is currently "on the rise". Secucloud, the German provider of cloud-based security, is one of the providers listed by Gartner and has already been delivering this type of cloud security service to its customers for a considerable time.

"To us, the fact that Firewall as a Service is listed in the current Gartner Hype Cycle shows that it's a red-hot technology trend - and the analysts also give it a ‘high' benefit rating," comments Dennis Monner, CEO of Secucloud. "With our cloud-based security portfolio, we're a forerunner leading the FWaaS development, because the Secucloud solution for this emerging technology of the future is already available to our customers today. As one of the few providers offering a FWaaS in their product range, we see this Gartner mention as confirmation of the huge potential of our cloud-based approach."

Flexible enterprise protection in the cloud

Companies using conventional firewall appliances need to build extra capacity into them from the start in order to ensure they can cope with peak loads and higher user numbers or traffic. In contrast, the Secucloud Firewall as a Service gives users much more flexibility because it scales up or down as necessary in a virtual cloud environment. It is also location-independent, so mobile devices like laptops and smartphones - along with equipment in home offices - benefit from the same protection as computers, machines and IoT devices on the corporate network. In this way, Secucloud provides universal enforcement of security policies regardless of location, including across a variety of subsidiaries and devices. The necessary security profiles are predefined and Secucloud ensures that they are implemented immediately, saving IT security managers valuable time. In addition, the solution eliminates the time and cost required for implementing patches and updates. As a cloud-based solution, the Secucloud firewall is automatically kept up to date at all times. Its high scalability ensures that there are never any compromises on performance - regardless of the number of users and even with the implementation of computing-intensive security filters.