# What is a Cloud Firewall?

> Cloud firewall is an industry term for firewall policy enforcement deployed in, integrated with, or delivered from a cloud environment.

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## Content

It can describe provider-native network rules, a virtual firewall appliance run by the customer, a managed firewall attached to cloud networks, or a cloud-delivered service that filters traffic for users and sites.

These forms have different enforcement points and responsibility boundaries. A provider-native control may protect virtual interfaces or subnets, a virtual appliance may inspect routed traffic, and a service may enforce policy at remote points of presence. Operators must understand state tracking, rule evaluation, route symmetry, scaling, tenancy, logging, and failure behavior for the chosen design.

### Key points

- **Policy coverage:** Map ingress, egress, workload-to-workload, hybrid, management, and service-provider paths, then confirm which component governs each flow.
- **Cloud integration:** Protect administrative APIs and automation, restrict policy changes, monitor configuration drift, and account for ephemeral addresses and rapidly changing workloads.
- **Shared responsibility:** Document what the cloud or security provider operates and what the customer must configure, monitor, test, and investigate.
- **Important limitation:** The cloud label does not guarantee elastic capacity, deep inspection, consistent multi-cloud policy, or secure configuration. A firewall also cannot correct excessive identity permissions, insecure application logic, or a path that bypasses it.

### Related terms

[Firewall](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/firewall/>) · [Virtual firewall](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/virtual-firewall/>) · [Firewall as a service (FWaaS)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/firewall-as-a-service/>) · [Cloud security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-security/>) · [Cloud network security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-network-security/>)

### Sources

[NIST SP 800-41 Rev. 1: Guidelines on Firewalls and Firewall Policy](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/41/r1/final) · [NIST SP 800-210: General Access Control Guidance for Cloud Systems](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/210/final) · [NIST SP 800-125B: Secure Virtual Network Configuration for VM Protection](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/125/b/final)

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