Firewalls and Routers

A firewall is a piece of software or hardware that helps screen out hackers, viruses, and worms that try to reach your computer over the Internet. If you are a home user or small-business user, using a firewall is the most effective and important first step you can take to help protect your computer.

According to estimates, an unprotected Windows computer system connected to the Internet could be compromised within ten minutes, because of this, the need for computer security has expanded in the last few years. Today, it is just as necessary for home users to secure personal computers as it is for businesses to secure office computers. In order to gain security benefits like those many businesses possess, home network security often utilizes the same models. The difference, has been that most home users do not have the financial resources for top of the line security equipment. This has led many home users to begin using security tools such as freeware firewalls and over-the-counter hardware firewall solutions.

It is important to turn on your firewall and antivirus software before you connect to the Internet.
If your computer is not protected when you connect to the Internet, hackers can gain access to personal information on your computer. They can install code on your computer that destroys files or causes all kinds of problems. They can also use your computer to cause problems on other home and business computers connected to the Internet. A firewall helps to screen out many kinds of malicious Internet traffic before it reaches your computer. Some firewalls can also help to prevent other people from using your computer to attack other computers without your knowledge. Using a firewall is important no matter how you connect to the Internet.

Different Types of Firewalls

There are two main types of firewalls: hardware and software. A hardware firewall is an external box sitting between the Internet and your computer. For home environments firewall functions are usually integrated in broadband routers, which allow you to connect to the Internet and share the connection with other computers too. A software firewall is a program running on your computer, which monitors the incoming and outgoing traffic and alerts you in case of doubt.

Our advice is to install a broadband router with internal firewall when possible. Even if you have a single computer, just using a USB broadband modem connects you directly to the Internet, making you more vulnerable. Using a router/firewall will not only improve your connection performance/reliability, but also create a physical separation between your machine and the Internet, thus making life much harder to hackers.

Although firewalls have their strengths, and are an invaluable information security resource, there are some attacks that the firewalls cannot protect against, such as eavesdropping or interception of e-mail. Furthermore, whereas firewalls provide a single point of security and audit, this also becomes a single point of failure ? which is to say, firewalls are a last line of defense. This means that if an attacker is able to breach the firewall, he or she will have gained access to the system, and may have an opportunity to steal data that is stored in that system, or to create other havoc within the system. Firewalls may keep the bad guys out, but what if the bad guys are inside? In the case of dishonest or disgruntled employees, firewalls will not provide much protection. Finally, as mentioned in the discussion of packet filtering, firewalls are not foolproof - IP spoofing can be an effective means of circumvention, for example.

For the best protection against the variety of security threats that exist, firewalls should be used in conjunction with other security measures such as anti-virus software and encryption packages. As well, a well-thought out and consistently implemented security policy is vital to attaining optimal effectiveness of any security software.