Page 110 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

Cloud-Native, AI-Driven, and Always-On: The Future of

Firewall Security

Next Generation Firewalls Provide Viable Security for Organizations That Take Cloud-Native
Architecture Seriously

By Paul Barbosa, Global Cloud Security Business Unit Leader, Check Point Software
Technologies

Firewalls were built for a different world—static networks, predictable traffic, and clear perimeters.

Today’s cloud-native environments are nothing like that; applications are broken into microservices, and
infrastructure spins up and disappears in minutes. Sensitive data moves between systems at machine
speed. And yet, too many organizations rely on security tools that can’t keep up with how modern systems
actually work.

The firewall has finally evolved, but only out of necessity. The newest generation isn’t an appliance or
virtual machine; it’s cloud-native, AI-driven, and always-on. It doesn’t guard a border; it lives where your
workloads live. And if it’s not doing that, it’s irrelevant.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 110
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