Life Expectancy of Firewalls

[ShawnF]

Hello,

This is perhaps a subjective question, but what would you say is the "life expectancy" of a typical firewall? I'm referring to the hardware device not a software-based firewall, and I don't mean how long will the cooling fan or hard drive last. Rather, what is the usual turn-over rate on firewalls seeing as their hardware/software surely becomes outdated in a similar fashion to computers. And it always gets to a point where a supplier no longer supports an out-dated unit. Ideally one would want to replace a firewall everytime the newer, better one came out, but we all know that's not feasible.

Thanks!

 

[chiph]

I've been wondering this myself recently. I've got a NetGear RT-311, which is no longer supported. I figure by now someone had to have figured a way through it, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet.

Of course, the downside of upgrading to the latest hardware is that you're probably exchanging one set of vulnerabilities for another.

Chip H.