There’s no real insight into what makes a firewall today “next-generation” besides the time it was created. There are commonalities between these firewalls and the originals, and those include TCP handshakes and packet inspections. Next-generation firewalls also use IPS – intrusion prevention systems – to stop network attacks.

These are any firewalls installed on local devices. The biggest draw for these in that they can create a useful, in-depth defense path. Maintaining these on more than one device is not easy, though, so you may need more than one for each asset.

Hardware firewalls use physical appliances, and they act like a traffic router. The intercept data packets before they are connected to a network server. The weakness here is that they can be easily bypassed, which goes against your need for a firewall.

Cloud-based firewall protects your internal network from malicious attacks such as viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, etc. The cloud firewall also helps prevent unauthorized access to data stored in the cloud.

More info: Network Security Assessment: What It is and its Benefits