A firewall can control north-south traffic extremely well while the internal network remains poorly segmented.
Consider a typical office containing:
corporate endpoints
guest devices
IP cameras
VoIP phones
wireless clients
IoT devices
servers
If all of these devices share broad Layer 2 access, the firewall alone cannot solve every lateral-movement problem.
A better architecture considers multiple layers.
Perimeter
NGFW, VPN, WAN and application policies.
Access Layer
VLANs, port policies, switching and device segmentation.
Wireless
Corporate SSIDs, guest networks, authentication and isolation.
Visibility
Understanding which device is connected, where it is connected and what it can access.
Fortinet Security Fabric is one example of an architecture that connects these layers through FortiGate, FortiSwitch, FortiAP and other components.
The important principle applies regardless of vendor:
Security architecture should extend from the WAN edge to the access layer.
Spanish business-side guide:
https://sistro.net/fortinet-security-fabric-fortigate-fortiswitch-fortiap
Tags: networking, cybersecurity, security, fortinet
