Have you ever wondered what a firewall is? Before sitting down to read this you’d be forgiven for only hearing about them in espionage thrillers. Don’t be fooled, firewalls are a vital part of keeping you and your network secure from malicious attacks. Simply put, firewalls are software or hardware dedicated to monitoring entry points on a computer (ports) from external devices, like other computers on the network. Based on rules and filters, the firewall either allows or denies access depending on the information collected by their IP address. In the next few paragraphs, we’ll go over a basic understanding of each type of firewall, and the pros and cons of each. Types of firewalls 1. Packet Filtering firewall Packet Filtering firewalls monitor junction points on your network such as the router. The firewall monitors packets of information and decides whether or not a message is dangerous. The advantage of this type of firewall is it can scan packets fast, it’s less taxing on your network and it’s generally less expensive to set up. 2. Circuit level gateway Circuit level gateways monitor TCP handshakes and other network messages as sessions between the network and an outside source are created. Based on...
