Firewalls originally were fireproof walls used as barriers to prevent fire from spreading, such as between apartment units within a building. The same term is used for systems (hardware and software) that seeks to prevent unauthorized access of an organization's information. Firewalls are like security guards that, based on certain rules, allow or deny access to/from traffic that enters or leaves an organization (home) system. They are important systems safe guards that seek to prevent an organization’s system from being attacked by internal or external users.It is the first and most important security gate between external and internal systems.
Firewalls are generally placed between the Internet and an organization’s information system. The firewall administrator configures the firewall with rules allowing or denying information packets from entering into or leaving the organization.
The rules are made using a combination of Internet Protocol (IP) address and Ports; such rules are made depending on the organization needs e.g. in a school, students are allowed in based on identity card.
The rule to the security guard in a school would be to allow all persons that carry a valid identity card and deny everyone else. However the security guard would have another rule for exiting from the school; the rule would be to allow everyone exit except small children unless accompanied by adults. A similar system is followed for firewall configuration depending on the nature of the organization, the criticality of information asset, cost of security, security policy and risk assessment.
The firewall just like a security guard cannot judge the contents of the information packet; just like the guard allows all persons with a valid identity card irrespective of nature of the persons, firewall allows entry or exit based mainly on IP address and Port numbers.
There are various kinds of firewall depending on the features that it has viz. packet filter (operates on IP packets), stateful firewall (operates based connection state) or application firewall (using proxy).
The rules are made using a combination of Internet Protocol (IP) address and Ports; such rules are made depending on the organization needs e.g. in a school, students are allowed in based on identity card.
The rule to the security guard in a school would be to allow all persons that carry a valid identity card and deny everyone else. However the security guard would have another rule for exiting from the school; the rule would be to allow everyone exit except small children unless accompanied by adults. A similar system is followed for firewall configuration depending on the nature of the organization, the criticality of information asset, cost of security, security policy and risk assessment.
The firewall just like a security guard cannot judge the contents of the information packet; just like the guard allows all persons with a valid identity card irrespective of nature of the persons, firewall allows entry or exit based mainly on IP address and Port numbers.
There are various kinds of firewall depending on the features that it has viz. packet filter (operates on IP packets), stateful firewall (operates based connection state) or application firewall (using proxy).
No comments:
Post a Comment