CyberRatings.org and NSS Labs Announce 2026 Cloud Network Firewall Test Results

Security Effectiveness Ranges from 0% to 99.95%

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- CyberRatings.org (CyberRatings), the non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through independent testing, today announced the results of its latest Cloud Network Firewall (CNFW) evaluation. Tests were conducted by NSS Labs and are now available at no cost on the CyberRatings.org website.

Of the nine products tested, only four earned a Recommended rating and native cloud firewalls were far less consistent than dedicated third-party offerings. Each of the Recommended products achieved 99.7% or higher in Security Effectiveness:

• Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
• HPE Juniper Networking vSRX Next Generation Firewall
• Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Next-Generation Firewall
• Versa Networks Next Generation Firewall

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Next-Gen Firewall earned a Neutral rating despite the highest Security Effectiveness at 99.95% due to its above-average price per Mbps.

AWS Network Firewall and Microsoft Azure Firewall both received 0% for Security Effectiveness, resulting in their Caution ratings. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) NGFW Enterprise at 77.45% Security Effectiveness and Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual at 66.10% Security Effectiveness also placed them in Caution.

Products from cloud service providers and third-party security vendors (the latter deployed on Amazon Web Services) were evaluated under identical conditions using the NSS Labs Cloud Network Firewall Test Methodology v4.1, with real-world exploits, evasion techniques, malware, false-positive samples, and sustained enterprise traffic loads.

Evasions were tested with 5,004 attacks spanning 43 techniques across OSI Layers 3, 4, and 7. Attackers use evasions to disguise malicious traffic and bypass inspection; one successful evasion can enable an entire class of exploits or malware, so strong evasion handling is essential.

"With attackers routinely using evasion techniques to slip past inspection, the products that earned a Recommended rating this year proved they can hold up under real conditions," said Vikram Phatak, CEO of CyberRatings.org. "Buyers should weigh evasion resistance and TLS inspection as heavily as raw block rates."

Recommendations for Buyers

1. Test regularly. Agile development and CI/CD pipelines let vendors ship improvements quickly, but rapid change can also introduce regressions that quietly erode protection.
2. Treat native cloud firewalls as a baseline, not a finish line. Validate exploit blocking, malware blocking, and evasion resistance against organizational requirements before relying on a native offering as a primary control.
3. Require TLS inspection and weigh evasion resistance heavily. A firewall that cannot inspect encrypted traffic leaves a substantial blind spot, and a single successful evasion can enable an entire class of attacks.
4. Re-evaluate firewall requirements for AI and agentic workloads. Local AI models and agentic workflows will consume more network resources and drive larger, more complex policies, including east-west agent-to-agent traffic.
5. Hold vendors accountable and demand transparency. No product is perfect; what matters is how a vendor responds when a gap is found. A lack of transparency should be treated as a red flag.

NSS Labs is the Official Testing Partner of CyberRatings, generating the test results and reports for CyberRatings publications. NSS Labs proprietary technologies and Keysight's CyPerf tool were used to test the security, performance, TLS functionality, and stability of Cloud Network Firewalls.

The Cloud Network Firewall Test Reports, Comparative Report and Security Map are available at CyberRatings.org.

About CyberRatings.org

CyberRatings.org is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through our research and testing programs. We provide enterprises with independent, objective ratings of security product efficacy to make informed decisions. To become a member, visit www.cyberratings.org and follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE CyberRatings.org