Kaspersky Delivers Biggest Kaspersky NGFW Update Since Product Launch
Kaspersky unveiled version 1.2 of its Kaspersky NGFW next-generation firewall at the INNOPROM 2026 industrial exhibition. The update doubles throughput on the KX-3500 platform to 140 Gbps, expands application recognition to more than 6,000 applications, raises filtering capacity to 100,000 rules and increases the signature database to more than 9,000 entries. The release targets large enterprises, government organizations and other high-demand environments, adding enhanced VPN capabilities, virtual contexts, policy-based traffic routing, automatic link failover and expanded monitoring tools.
Although the release does not introduce an entirely new technology, it represents a significant milestone in the evolution of Kaspersky's enterprise cybersecurity portfolio. The update strengthens competition in Russia's domestic market while narrowing the feature gap with established Western firewall platforms.
According to the Center for Strategic Research, Russia's market for next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) grew 30.1% in 2024, reaching 52.2 billion rubles (about $580 million USD). Stronger protection for corporate and government networks reduces the risk of operational disruptions and data breaches. For Russia, the trend strengthens its domestic cybersecurity portfolio, lowers dependence on Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and Check Point, and improves the resilience of critical infrastructure. While the global impact remains limited, the update reinforces the position of Russian cybersecurity vendors and could support deployments in friendly countries.
Expanding the Ecosystem
Kaspersky NGFW's long-term growth strategy is closely tied to import substitution. Organizations are looking not only to replace foreign firewall platforms but also to migrate complex filtering policies, routing configurations, VPN environments and network segmentation. Version 1.2 addresses many of the requirements common among large enterprises by supporting extensive policy sets, infrastructure segmentation and link redundancy. That broadens the product's potential for deployment in data centers, industrial environments, government agencies and financial institutions.
Another advantage is compliance with Russian regulatory requirements. The product is included in the Ministry of Digital Development's registries of domestic software and software-hardware systems and has been certified by FSTEC. That allows organizations to deploy it in regulated environments and government procurement projects. The continued expansion of the surrounding security ecosystem also lays the foundation for more comprehensive network security architectures.
Export opportunities extend across CIS countries, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, where Kaspersky already maintains a presence. The combination of NGFW capabilities with the company's threat intelligence expertise strengthens the product's position. However, sanctions, local certification requirements and competition from Chinese vendors could limit export growth.
Competition in Russia's NGFW Market
In 2023, Kod Bezopasnosti updated its Kontinent 4 (Continent 4) NGFW to version 4.1.7, expanding both security mechanisms and networking capabilities. The platform remains one of the principal solutions for large organizations and regulated environments. In 2024, Kaspersky introduced the beta version of Kaspersky NGFW with encrypted traffic inspection, application control, streaming antivirus scanning and integration with Kaspersky Security Network. During the same period, InfoTeKS continued expanding its ViPNet product line, updating Coordinator and xFirewall while releasing the certified ViPNet xFirewall 5.6.2 with firewall protection, deep packet inspection (DPI), VPN, intrusion prevention and high-availability capabilities.
Kaspersky NGFW entered commercial deployment in 2025. The fully featured release, accompanied by a family of hardware platforms designed for infrastructures of different sizes, became available in August. Competition among Russian NGFW vendors, including Kod Bezopasnosti, Positive Technologies and others, also intensified. Migration away from foreign products continued to face challenges related to feature completeness, performance and support complexity. During 2025 and 2026, Kaspersky NGFW completed certification and began broader deployment. Version 1.1 improved high availability and hardware support, while version 1.2 represents the largest update since the product's commercial launch.
Stronger Centralized Management
Kaspersky NGFW 1.2 suggests that Russia's NGFW market is shifting from import substitution toward competition based on performance and feature maturity. Future development is expected to focus on stronger centralized management, greater policy automation, tighter integration with monitoring and incident response systems, broader cloud support and continued performance gains. Ultimately, however, independent testing results and real-world deployments will remain the decisive benchmarks.
Russia's NGFW market is expected to continue growing as organizations replace foreign security platforms and modernize existing infrastructure. Kaspersky NGFW has the potential to become one of the country's leading firewall platforms, although competition with more mature offerings from UserGate, Kontinent and ViPNet is likely to remain intense.
