What is a next-generation firewall?

A traditional firewall provides stateful inspection of network traffic. It allows or blocks traffic based on state, port, and protocol, and filters traffic based on administrator-defined rules.

A next-generation firewall (NGFW) does this, and so much more. In addition to access control, NGFWs can block modern threats such as advanced malware and application-layer attacks. According to Gartner's definition, a next-generation firewall must include:

• Standard firewall capabilities like stateful inspection
• Integrated intrusion prevention
• Application awareness and control to see and block risky apps
• Threat intelligence sources
• Upgrade paths to include future information feeds
• Techniques to address evolving security threat

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/firewalls/what-is-a-next-generation-firewall.html