Since their introduction in the 1980s, firewalls have undergone significant transformation, evolving from simple packet filters into today's Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) and Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) solutions. Governed by preset rules, firewalls have earned their place in reactive security strategies as a barrier between trusted internal networks and the untrusted Internet.
Unfortunately, reactive security strategies are no longer adequate protection against the modern hacker.
Despite advancements made since their introduction over forty years ago, firewalls are still easily evaded because the hackers know how they work, and they do not proactively protect organizations from the growing sophistication of cyber threats. That’s where Full Content Inspection (FCI) comes in
Firewalls have been a fundamental part of network security for decades, but they are facing a reckoning. These legacy solutions simply cannot handle the complexity and speed of modern threats, many of which are explicitly designed to bypass firewalls. Even the most advanced NFGWs and FWaaS solutions leave critical gaps in protection.
Firewalls rely on indicators of compromise (IOCs) and pattern matching to detect and block known threats. More often than block a suspected threat, they allow suspicious traffic into your network and send an alert to your team so they can respond. They miss threats from unknown sources, require costly management support and even more costly event management. Pair the need for constant management with firewalls' high false positive rate, and it's no wonder security teams are struggling with alert fatigue.
Until the introduction of FCI, this reactive posture was the only choice, resulting in overworked cybersecurity teams managing networks that are still getting regularly hacked.
Unlike firewalls that rely on ephemeral IOCs, pattern matching, and static rules meant to protect millions of uncountable targets, FCI fully interrogates full session content in network traffic to expose the actual malicious content, which includes the hacker tools, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that no other solution can identify. By targeting the hacker’s content in network traffic FCI puts the power of threat prevention back into defenders' hands.
Trinity Cyber's FCI platform gives security teams all the benefits of NGFWs and FWaaS — scalability, flexibility, and ease of use — but with no alerts and a false positive rate of less than 0.01%. That means more accurate threat detection, less noise for your team to manage, less cost, and far superior security results.
FCI does it in real-time by actively inspecting, detecting, and removing threats from live traffic at line speed. It is way beyond block or alert.
| Feature | Firewall, FWaaS, NGFW | Full Content Inspection |
| Detection Approach | Limited to IOCs and pattern matching | Unlimited sub-object level countermeasures with contextual awareness |
| False Positives | Averages over 30% | Less than 0.01% |
| Threat Prevention | Reactive block and alert | Proactive detect and remove |
| Operational Impact | Requires constant management and tuning | Fully managed, zero-touch for your team |
| Incident Response | High alert volume, lengthy response times | No alerts, real-time prevention |
| Visibility & Analytics | No packet capture and limited visibility | 72 hours of rolling, decrypted, searchable packet capture data and fully enriched forensic-level detail of prevented events |
Stop settling for outdated, high-maintenance firewall protection. Trinity Cyber operates a centrally managed, global cybersecurity platform that protects businesses from cyberattacks using its revolutionary real-time Full Content Inspection (FCI) technology. FCI is a better method of detection combined with active preventive controls that go way beyond block and alert to actually mitigate threats before they enter or leave a network. The company has been recognized by industry leading organizations, including Gartner, SINET, SC Media, Dark Reading, and CyberDefense Magazine for their superior approach to threat prevention. Sign up for a free trial.