It prevents harmful malware from entering your internal network and wreaking havoc on your valuable data and systems. A next-generation contextual firewall works similarly, but with exclusive emphasis on preventing valuable data from leaking out of the organization.

This data may include business strategies, sensitive financial information, contracts such as non-disclosure agreements, and personal data pertaining to both customers and employees. If any such data leaves the confines of the organization and becomes available to competitors or even the general public, then the business risks facing severe consequences, such as losing its competitive advantage or losing the trust and loyalty of customers.

A next-generation contextual firewall scans all outgoing data, be it through emails or cloud sharing services, for any data that your organization defines as sensitive and valuable. It identifies the files containing such information, which are then automatically filtered out of all communications originating from the organization. The firewall constantly monitors the enterprise networks for file names and contexts associated with critical information and blocks them when they are shared outside the organization, either accidentally or deliberately. For instance, if an employee tries to share an internal financial report by attaching it to an email, a contextual firewall will recognize the file name and context of such file during the process and prevent the file from being mailed out.

While most existing and traditional firewall solutions can be circumvented if an employee deliberately renames files before sharing, a next-generation contextual firewall like that developed by GajShield can easily prevent such attempts. Such contextual firewalls don’t just scan file names but also identify sensitive data by scanning through the contents of the documents, ensuring that even deliberately planned attempts to leak organizational data are prevented and the consequent risks are mitigated.