Blogs >> Technology >>
Firewalls
Firewalls are one of the basic defense technologies. Even the name sounds strong! Originally, they were deployed around the perimeter of a corporate or academic intranet; perhaps a few were sprinkled throughout the interior of the intranet, to protect the most sensitive sections of the intranet, or “subnets.” But the advent of “always on” connections for home users—DSL and cable modems—brought the need for a firewall to our homes. So the average user needs to know how they work.
You may have some experience with firewalls, as Windows XP operating system features a software-based one as part of the Microsoft Security Center. Windows 7 has the "Windows Firewall With Advanced Security. (Later, in a post on “Safe Surfing” I will discuss drive-by downloads. For now, let me offer a warning: accept no substitutes; be aware of cheap knockoffs of the Security Center.)
You may have some experience with firewalls, as Windows XP operating system features a software-based one as part of the Microsoft Security Center. Windows 7 has the "Windows Firewall With Advanced Security. (Later, in a post on “Safe Surfing” I will discuss drive-by downloads. For now, let me offer a warning: accept no substitutes; be aware of cheap knockoffs of the Security Center.)
At the organizational level, you most likely would employ a hardware-based firewall (a computing appliance dedicated to the task). A dedicated appliance generally is faster, because it is not sharing computing resources with other applications. And if it is not sharing applications, then it is not sharing their vulnerabilities.
There are several different kinds of firewalls. And I think several new ones are invented every day. Three common types of firewall are packet-filtering, stateful, and proxy.
I will discuss these different types of firewalls in my next posts.
|
|
