Firewall Security
When you connect your computer or private network to the Internet, you are physically connecting your network to well over millions of unknown networks and all of their users. While such connections open the door to many useful applications and provide great opportunities for information sharing, most private networks contain some information that should not be shared with outside users on the Internet.
In addition, not all Internet users are involved in lawful activities. These two statements foreshadow the key questions behind most security issues on the Internet:
- How do you protect confidential information from those who do not explicitly need to access it?
- How do you protect your network and its resources from malicious users and accidents that originate outside of your network?
A firewall is a protective system that lies, in essence, between your computer network and the Internet . When used correctly, a firewall prevents unauthorized use and access to your network. The job of a firewall is to carefully analyze data entering and exiting the network based on your configuration. It ignores information that comes from an unsecured, unknown or suspicious locations. A firewall plays an important role on any network as it provides a protective barrier against most forms of attack coming from the outside world. A quality firewall will provide Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) protection.
While many people do not completely understand the importance and necessity of a firewall, or consider it to be a product for businesses only, if your network or computer has access to the outside world via the Internet then you need to have a firewall to protect your network, individual computer and data therein.
Hardware Firewall
Hardware firewalls are important because they provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside world. Additionally, in most cases, they can be effective with little or no configuration, and they can protect every machine on a local network. A hardware firewall by nature is dedicated to providing network security and is a physically separate piece of equipment dedicated to its task and therefore is not dependent on Operating Systems or user management.
A hardware firewall in a typical broadband router employs a technique called Network Address Translation (NAT) which takes the publicly routable Internet Protocol (IP) address from your Internet connection and then translates it into a Local Area Network IP which is difficult to route over the Internet. This limited level of protection is not recommended.
Robust firewalls provide advanced packet filtering, which examines the layers of a packet to determine if part of if may have been forged. This information is compared to a set of predefined and/or user-created rules that determine whether the packet is to be forwarded or dropped. A more advanced technique called Stateful Packet Inspection ( SPI ), looks at additional characteristics such as a packet's actual origin (i.e. did it come from the Internet or from the local network) and whether incoming traffic is a response to existing outgoing connections, like a request for a Web page.
A good firewall can closely monitor network traffic and provide a perimeter between the Internet and your Local Area Network. Because of this, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spywre, Intrusion Prevention can all be stopped before getting into any systems. Network and systems health can be monitored with easy reporting for simplifying network management in complex environments.
Software Firewall
For individual home users, a common firewall choice is a software firewall. Software firewalls are installed on your computer (like any software) and you can customize it; allowing you some control over its function and protection features. A software firewall will lightly protect your computer from outside attempts to control or gain access your computer, and, depending on your choice of software firewall, it could also provide protection against the most common Trojan programs or E-mail worms.
Many software firewalls have user defined controls for setting up safe file and printer sharing and to block unsafe applications from running on your system. Additionally, software firewalls may also incorporate privacy controls, web filtering and more. When you first set up a software firewall, you can specify which applications are allowed to communicate over the Internet from that PC. Programs that aren't explicitly allowed to do so are either blocked or else the user is prompted for confirmation before the traffic is allowed to pass. Therefore, it would likely intercept this kind of traffic before it left your computer.
Our concern with the software firewall is that is puts the liability to make technical decisions about which programs should be allowed or blocked access to your computer or the Internet. It is frequently difficult to know if the application requesting access is legitimate or simply naming itself something that sounds acceptable or is ambiguous and users allow access without knowing of potential risks involved.
One obvious downside to software firewalls is that they can only protect the machine they're installed on, so if you have multiple computers (which many small offices do), you need to buy, install, and configure a software firewall separately on each machine. This can get expensive and can be difficult to manage if you have a lot of computers.
Another problem with software firewalls is that inevitably all software becomes obsolete, corrupted, disabled, hacked around, or otherwise circumvented. It is important to monitor a software firewall once installed and to download any updates available from the developer.
Big B Creations' Recommendations
Although software firewall may work for a home owner with one computer and no important information stored on it, it is not recommended for others. To truly protect your computer, especially if your computer is in a network and has control or access to sensitive information a hardware firewall is the way to go.
Hardware firewalls can be purchased as a stand-alone product, but more recently hardware firewalls are typically found in broadband routers, and should be considered an important part of your system and network set-up, especially for anyone on a broadband connection. Hardware firewalls can be effective with little or no configuration, and they can protect every machine on a local network. Most hardware firewalls will have a minimum of four network ports to connect other computers, but for larger networks, business networking firewall solutions are available.
SonicWALL
Big B Creations is a proud Medallion Partner and reseller of SonicWALL security appliances. SonicWALL designs, develops and manufactures comprehensive Internet security solutions which provides complete protection from a wide range of network security threats. By integrating their line of high-performance, solid-state firewalls and VPN appliances with value-added security subscriptions such as enforced Anti-Virus, content filtering, and other security applications, SonicWALL Internet security solutions deliver the tools businesses need to counter multiple security threats and to optimize productivity.
Internet security appliances and security devices are available in different models and packages to meet the diverse needs of different networks. By getting to know our clients needs and understanding their objectives, Big B Creations can determine and recommend what specific security solutions will work best for you.