Initially launched as a standalone product during a 2025 public preview, AWS Network Firewall's explicit forward proxy feature allowed centralized oversight to prevent data exfiltration and malware threats. Customers expressed a desire for feature parity and the ability to use a single, consistent firewall policy across proxy and transparent firewall functionalities.
Responding to this, AWS combined these features into a no-source-preservation deployment model permitting existing firewall policies to apply seamlessly to explicit proxy use cases. This integration supports managed rule groups, threat defense, Geo-IP, URL/domain filtering, and container attribute-based rules, simplifying security management under one policy framework available in the US East (Ohio) region during the preview phase.
Source & further reading
[Preview Announcement] Re-introducing Forward Proxy as AWS Network Firewall Functionality ↗Source published 2026-08-04. This report was prepared with AI assistance from the linked primary-source material. Claims and limitations should be checked against the original announcement or research.