Beyond the hardware
A firewall appliance can be powerful and still provide poor protection when rules are undocumented, firmware is old, remote access is unmanaged or nobody reviews alerts.
Managed service components
Expect an agreed network design, named policy owner, controlled changes, threat-prevention updates, secure VPN, guest separation, configuration backup, monitoring and replacement planning.
Questions for your provider
- Who approves firewall changes?
- How are emergency changes recorded?
- Are administrator accounts protected with MFA?
- When was the configuration last backed up and restored?
- How are unsupported devices replaced?
The firewall should fit into wider endpoint, identity, Wi-Fi and incident response controls rather than operate as an isolated box.