subject: Protect Your Data - Enter The World of Network Security [print this page] Protect Your Data - Enter The World of Network Security
While many people do not completely understand the importance and necessity of a firewall, or consider it to be a business only product, if you have access to the outside world via the Internet then you need to have a firewall to keep your content safe. Servingas protective barrier that lies between your computer network and the Internet, a firewall is used to prevent unauthorized use and access to your network, while carefully analyzing the data entering and exiting the network, based on your configuration.
As with most electronic equipment, a computer user with general computer knowledge can plug in a firewall, adjust a few settings and have it working. To ensure that it's configured for optimal security however, consumers will need to learn the specific features, how to enable them, and how to test them, to ensure they are doing a good job of protecting your network. Firewalls can either be hardware or software but the ideal configuration will consist of both.
A hardware firewall uses packet filtering, which examines the header of a packet to determine its source and destination addresses. This information is compared to a set of predefined, user-created rules that determine whether the packet is to be forwarded or dropped. It ignores information that comes from an unsecured, unknown or suspicious locations as it also allows remote access to a private network through secure authentication certificates and log-ins. Hardware firewalls are very important because in addition to security, they will effectively protect not just one, but every machine on a local network. One of most popular and effective hardware firewalls at the moment are the Cisco ASA (Adaptive Security Appliance) 5500 series. The different models can accommodate any requirements and you can order the Security PLUS Software for them, which enhances the protection of your network environment even more.
Some offices, only install software firewalls on their computers, but one downside to those is that they can only protect the machine they're installed on, so if you have multiple units, 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.
In essence, if you have a home-office broadband connection, a hardware firewall should be considered a bare minimum, and supplementing it with a software firewall on one or more computers is usually a good idea.
