Firewalls protect networks by monitoring incoming and outgoing data packets. They permit or block data packets based on specific security rules.
Think of your devices and servers as a house and ports as rooms. A firewall acts as your security guard to check the safety of each room (destination port) before allowing access.
Identifying Threats
A firewall is an essential security tool that helps managed services providers (MSPs) protect customer networks from various threats. Firewalls establish a border between external public and internal private networks by monitoring all data entering or exiting a network. Analyzing this traffic, they identify and block connections that appear from a malicious source or may violate network rules.
A firewall uses pre-defined rules to determine whether a packet can be passed through. It inspects the contents of these packets to see if they abide by specific guidelines. Then it can either deny or permit the packets to pass through. A firewall can also use advanced features such as stateful packet inspection and anti-poofing to detect malware and other threats.
The most common firewall threats include:
Misconfigured firewall rules: Firewalls have many access control settings, and it can be easy to make a mistake. For instance, a single ‘eq’ or ‘new’ error can change an entire firewall rule from a niche to a broad authority.
In addition, firewall rules may contain redundant elements or duplicates that slow the system down and make them less effective. A well-defined risk assessment and a disciplined change management strategy can help you identify these issues and prevent them from becoming threats to your company.
Defending Your Network
When a firewall security system discovers unauthorized connections, it blocks them by reviewing the data and identifying potentially hazardous activities. It takes place at the application and network layers. It inspects the data packets (units of communication that travel over digital networks) that enter the guarded network from the Internet to ensure they comply with pre-established rules. Packs contain a range of information, including their origin, destination, protocol, and port number. A packet that doesn’t adhere to the rules is blocked – for example, a firewall may drop packets attempting to access port 23 on your computer, which the Telnet server application uses.
The firewall also analyzes the contents of web traffic and blocks lateral movement by malicious actors, which can cause severe damage by corrupting essential systems and applications. For example, a Trojan can take the form of an innocuous application that, when clicked on by an attacker, allows the Trojan to gain control of a system and perform tasks, such as gathering personal information for financial fraud or spreading a worm that replicates on its own and causes insufficient memory and program crashes that affect productivity.
Firewalls can also perform essential network-level functions such as network address translation and virtual private networking, which hides internal IP addresses to preserve the limited number of available IPv4 addresses or extends a private network across a public network using encryption. Additionally, some types of firewalls can automatically update their configurations, removing the need for administrators to check and implement updates manually constantly.
Keeping Your Data Safe
Whether a network firewall is in place to protect home computers or enterprise businesses, the goal is to prevent cyberattacks and keep information secure. Firewalls do this by filtering traffic and blocking outsiders from unauthorized access to the private data on your computer or networks. They also perform essential logging and audit functions to help administrators find threats, improve rules, and block them in the future.
Network firewalls are hardware or software programs that monitor incoming and outgoing data based on defined rules. They can be installed at a network perimeter to guard against external threats or within a network to create segmentation and against insider threats. In many cases, firewalls are used in conjunction with other cybersecurity devices.
Firewalls are an essential part of every business’s security strategy. They can prevent unauthorized access, help keep your data safe, and even detect malware in your system before it can cause damage.
Choosing the proper firewall protection for your business requires careful consideration. Consider using a managed services provider (MSP) to install and maintain customer firewalls. It will ensure your customers’ firewalls are up-to-date and protected against the latest cybersecurity threats. You should also implement a routine process to check for firewall software updates and install them.
Preventing Unauthorized Access
Firewalls act as a border guard by allowing or blocking specific data packets (units of information transferred over digital networks) based on pre-established security rules. These rules are derived from many aspects indicated in the data packet, like the source and destination, that decide whether the connection abides by the firewall’s law set or is deemed potentially malicious.
Fireworks had come a long way since the late 1980s when they started as basic packet filters that monitored packets, or bytes, sent between computers. They have been refined to incorporate more advanced technology as the need has arisen for better protection from threats, such as hacking, malware, identity theft, and online fraud.
Network layer firewalls are a good choice for home use, especially for those with always-on connections to the Internet, like cable and DSL modems. This type of firewall monitors traffic in the transport layer of the open systems interconnection (OSI) model and blocks incoming threats that could infect personal devices and computers with malware.
A unified threat management firewall (UTM) is the best option for corporate environments and offers more advanced technology that monitors traffic on the application layer of the OSI model. This method of firewall security identifies unauthorized applications, which may have entered a business network through other means, and stops them from gaining access.
