Unsure whether to enable DPI / threat protection on the firewall for an SMB.
Deep Packet Inspection and IDS/IPS on an SMB firewall (Fortinet, Sophos, UniFi UDM, Meraki) sound good but only help if configured carefully. On with everything blocked can halve your internet or kill legitimate traffic. Off and you pay for an idle feature. Make the call deliberately.
Try this first
- 1Gauge your actual uplink throughput need, DPI typically cuts max throughput by 30 to 50 percent depending on the model, read the spec sheet honestly.
- 2Start in 'detect only' / 'monitor' mode, do not block from day one. A week of logs tells you which false positives are coming.
- 3Only enable HTTPS inspection if your MDM can push the inspection cert to every laptop, otherwise you break apps that use cert pinning.
- 4Keep paying for the threat feed licence, otherwise your IPS is outdated within a year.
- 5Whitelist your SaaS suite (Microsoft 365 endpoints, Adobe, banks) so heavy DPI does not slow them down.
When to bring us in
You have regulatory requirements around traffic inspection (NIS2, PCI-DSS): turning things on ad hoc will not pass, it belongs in a real policy with a security partner who also handles incident response.
See also
- Wi-Fi drops randomly across the officeFirst rule out whether it is the access points or the internet connection itself. Different fix.
- One room or corner has no or bad Wi-FiNot always "add another AP"; often one is poorly positioned, or there is a metal wall in the way.
- Internet is suddenly slow for everyoneThree suspects: your provider, a colleague soaking the line, or a backup or update kicking in unexpectedly.
None of the above fits?
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