Network Management
Managed Firewall Services
Your firewall is the front door to your network. We deploy, configure and actively manage next-generation firewalls so it stays locked down, up to date and performing.
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- Customer satisfaction
- 100%
- Years of combined experience
- 35+
- Average first response
- 9 min
Overview
A firewall that’s actually managed
A firewall is only as good as its configuration and upkeep. Left unmanaged, rules drift, firmware falls behind and gaps quietly open, exactly what attackers look for.
WhizzIT takes ownership of your next-generation firewall end to end: correct configuration, active threat prevention, timely updates and continuous monitoring, so your perimeter stays strong without adding to your team’s workload.
Firewalls are configured, monitored and kept patched as an ongoing service, with rule changes handled by us rather than left to accumulate untracked. We are a team of five engineers supporting more than 30 UK businesses, from two-user teams to organisations of 150+ users. WhizzIT is Cyber Essentials certified and a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, so our security fundamentals are independently assessed rather than simply claimed. It is priced per user at a fixed monthly cost rather than bundled into rigid packages, so it scales with your team.
Network ManagementManaged Firewall
What’s included
- Next-generation firewall supply, setup and configuration
- Security rule and policy management
- Intrusion prevention and threat filtering
- Secure site-to-site and remote-access VPN
- Firmware patching and updates
- 24/7 monitoring, alerting and reporting
The problem
Having a firewall is not the same as being protected
Almost every business we assess already owns a capable firewall. The box is rarely the issue. What it is running, and who last looked at it, usually is.
Firewall vulnerabilities get published, and because these devices sit on the public internet they are scanned and exploited quickly, sometimes within days of an advisory. An unpatched firewall is not a neutral risk, it is an internet-facing door with a known key. Yet firmware updates get deferred because nobody wants to reboot the internet during working hours, and then the deferral becomes permanent.
Somebody opened a port temporarily for a supplier in 2021 and it is still open. An any to any rule went in to get a project finished and never came out. Nobody can say which rules are still needed because there is no record of why they were added, so nobody dares remove any of them.
The intrusion prevention, web filtering and threat intelligence that make a next-generation firewall worth buying are licensed separately. When those lapse the device carries on passing traffic quite happily with its best features switched off, and nothing tells you.
What we take ownership of
- Firmware patching on a managed schedule
- Rule review with a documented reason for each
- Intrusion prevention and web filtering kept licensed
- Site to site and remote access VPN
- Logging retained so incidents can be investigated
- Monitoring and alerting on device health
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Firmware nobody wants to reboot
Firewall vulnerabilities get published, and because these devices sit on the public internet they are scanned and exploited quickly, sometimes within days of an advisory. An unpatched firewall is not a neutral risk, it is an internet-facing door with a known key. Yet firmware updates get deferred because nobody wants to reboot the internet during working hours, and then the deferral becomes permanent.
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Rule drift
Somebody opened a port temporarily for a supplier in 2021 and it is still open. An any to any rule went in to get a project finished and never came out. Nobody can say which rules are still needed because there is no record of why they were added, so nobody dares remove any of them.
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Expired subscriptions, silently
The intrusion prevention, web filtering and threat intelligence that make a next-generation firewall worth buying are licensed separately. When those lapse the device carries on passing traffic quite happily with its best features switched off, and nothing tells you.
Capability
What next-generation actually means
The phrase is on every vendor’s datasheet. These are the parts that earn it.
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Application awareness
Older firewalls made decisions on ports. Modern traffic mostly rides over 443, so port rules tell you almost nothing. Application control identifies what is really passing through, which is how you allow a service you sanction while blocking one you do not, even though both look identical from the outside.
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Intrusion prevention
Inspects traffic for known exploit patterns and blocks them in transit. It is one of the licensed features that quietly stops working when a subscription lapses, which is why we track renewals as part of the service rather than leaving it to a diary entry.
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Encrypted traffic inspection
Most threats now arrive over encrypted connections, so a firewall that cannot look inside them is guessing. It is worth being straight about the trade-offs: inspection costs throughput, needs certificates deploying properly, and some traffic such as banking should be excluded deliberately. Done carelessly it breaks applications, which is why it is configured deliberately rather than switched on wholesale.
Remote access
VPN, or something better than VPN
Traditional VPN does one thing: it puts a remote device on your network. That was fine when the alternative was nothing, and it is now the part of the setup attackers most want to reach, because one stolen laptop or one reused password buys them the whole internal network to explore.
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Where remote access is heading
The direction of travel is access to specific applications rather than access to the network. A user is authenticated, their device is checked, and they are connected to the one system they need and nothing else. If that account is later compromised, the damage is bounded by design instead of by luck. Not every business needs to move immediately, but if your VPN currently drops everyone onto a flat internal network, that is worth revisiting.
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What carries the weight today
Multi-factor authentication on VPN access without exception, accounts removed the day someone leaves rather than the following quarter, and internal segmentation so a compromised machine cannot reach your servers and your backups just because it is inside the building. We are a Fortinet partner and will recommend the right model for your size and connectivity rather than the box with the best margin.
Certified & accredited
Credentials you can check
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Cyber Essentials certified
Independently assessed against the UK government-backed scheme, so our security fundamentals are verified rather than simply claimed. We help clients certify too. How Cyber Essentials helps you -
Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider
A direct partnership with Microsoft. We license, deploy and support Microsoft 365 and Azure for you, with escalation straight to Microsoft when it is needed. Our Microsoft cloud services
Cyber Essentials is a UK government scheme run by the National Cyber Security Centre, delivered by IASME. You can verify what the certification covers at source.
Ready when you are
Tell us what is slowing your team down
Describe the problem in a sentence. We’ll respond the same working day, with no obligation.
Billy provides a superb service; responsive, attentive and very knowledgeable about IT.
How we help
What we deliver
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Deploy & configure
We size, install and configure the right firewall for your network, with a secure rule set from day one.
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Monitor & maintain
We watch it around the clock, apply firmware updates and tune rules as your business changes.
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Report & improve
Clear reporting on threats blocked and traffic patterns, with recommendations to keep improving.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Not covered here? Ask us directly — same working day response.
020 4634 2518What is a managed firewall service?
We take responsibility for the device end to end. Supply and configuration if you need it, then firmware patching, rule and policy management, keeping the security subscriptions live, VPN, logging, monitoring and alerting. The point is that somebody owns it, because an unowned firewall degrades quietly and nothing tells you.
Can you manage our existing firewall?
Usually yes. We review what you have, check the firmware and subscription status, go through the rules to work out what is still needed, tighten the configuration, then take over patching and monitoring. Occasionally the honest answer is that the device is past end of support and needs replacing, and we will say so plainly rather than manage something that cannot be secured.
Do I still need a firewall if I have antivirus?
Yes, they do different jobs. Antivirus protects a device once something has reached it. A firewall controls what reaches your network in the first place, inspects encrypted traffic, blocks known exploits in transit and filters outbound connections that malware relies on. Neither replaces the other.
How often should firmware be updated?
On a managed schedule, and promptly when a vendor publishes a serious advisory. Internet-facing devices get scanned for known vulnerabilities very quickly after disclosure, so deferring an update indefinitely is a real risk rather than a theoretical one. We plan the reboot for a quiet window instead of avoiding it forever.
Which firewalls do you support?
We work with leading next-generation vendors and are a Fortinet partner. The recommendation depends on your size, connectivity, remote access needs and whether encrypted traffic inspection is in scope, because that determines the throughput you actually need rather than the number on the box.
Do you review the rules, or just keep it running?
Both, and the review is the part that gets skipped elsewhere. Rules accumulate: a port opened for a supplier years ago, a broad rule added to finish a project. We work through them with a documented reason for each, so the configuration reflects the business as it is now rather than every temporary decision anyone has ever made.
Technology partners
Brands we partner with
We hold partner status with the vendors behind the tools we deploy, so your licensing, support and escalation come direct from the source rather than through a reseller chain.
