Company Invites Industry Engagement to Help Evolve Forthcoming NGFW Test and Methodology
AUSTIN, Texas – August 28, 2018 – NSS Labs, Inc., a global leader and trusted source for independent, fact-based cybersecurity guidance, today announced that it is developing the next iteration of its Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Group Test with results expected to be released in 2019. As part of today’s announcement, NSS Labs is also issuing a call for industry engagement from both enterprises and NGFW vendors to help shape and evolve its upcoming test and methodology.
The NGFW market is one of the largest and most mature markets in the cybersecurity industry.1 According to the NSS Labs 2017 Security Architecture Study, 80.5% of US enterprises deploy NGFWs. Industry analysts estimate that the NGFW market is estimated to grow from US$2.39 billion in 2017 to US$4.27 billion by 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3%.2
Earlier this year, NSS Labs performed the industry’s most comprehensive group test of NGFW products. Products from 10 of the industry’s leading vendors were examined for security effectiveness, performance, and total cost of ownership (TCO). Six out of the ten products that participated in this group test demonstrated resistance to common evasion techniques. The remaining four products in the test missed at least one evasion technique. For more information about the test, click here.
For the 2018 NGFW Group Test, NSS Labs expanded testing to include secure sockets layer (SSL)/ transport layer security (TLS) performance tests. All 10 of the tested products were examined for SSL/TLS cipher functionality and performance.
In conjunction with the 2018 NGFW Group Test, NSS Labs investigated the impact on NGFW products of attacks that use JavaScript and attacks that use code obfuscation. All 10 of the tested products were impacted to some degree when exploits were transformed by one or more code obfuscation techniques. To learn more about NSS Labs’ investigative report, click here.
“The NSS Labs NGFW group tests continue to produce surprising findings regarding the security effectiveness of leading products in the market,” said Jason Brvenik, Chief Technology Officer at NSS Labs. “In our most recent group test, we saw many newer entrants with strong capabilities challenging established players. We continue to evolve our test methodologies to keep pace with changing attack vectors and the needs of the enterprise. We encourage enterprises and vendors to collaborate with us as we continue to examine leading NGFW products in the market.”
As with all NSS Labs group tests, there is no fee for participation, and the test methodology is available in the public domain to provide transparency and to help enterprises understand the factors behind test results.
1NSS Labs “Security Controls in the US Enterprise: Next Generation Firewalls,” August 2017
2Markets and Markets “Next Generation Market by Delivery Type, Service, Organization Size, Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2022,” June 2017