Everything You Need to Know About Firewall Security

Firewalls can help you in protecting your business from threats. They are a very important part of your security strategy. You should understand the working of a firewall. In this article, we are going to discuss everything about the firewall. It will help you in making an educated choice.

Definition of Firewall:

A firewall is a very important security device that will help you in monitoring your network traffic. It will protect your network by filtering outgoing and incoming traffic. Firewalls use rules for distinguishing between safe and spam traffic. The easiest way to protect your system from malicious attacks is by setting up a firewall. It will act as a wall between your system and hackers.

How does it work?

A firewall can be placed either at the software or at a hardware level. It will secure your hardware or software from malicious traffic. You can protect both single machines and a network of machines by using a firewall. This device will have some predefined set of rules that it will use to check incoming and outgoing traffic.

Communication on the internet happens by transmitting and requesting data. You can’t send your whole data as a whole. Thus, your machine and server will break into several data packets. Your firewall will check these data packets and will ensure that they are safe.

Every data packet has two parts. The first one is the header part which contains the control information and the second one is the payload which is the actual data. You can find the information about the receiver and sender. The data will first pass through the firewall where the firewall will check it. This transfer will depend on the data that you are transferring. It will also depend on the rules used by your firewall.

For example, your firewall can block traffic that is coming from a specific system. It will check the header of the data packet for malicious IP addresses. If the header contains a malicious IP address, then it will block the data packet. Your firewall can also deny everyone expects your trusted sources. There are various ways to use a firewall. You can use different types of firewalls for protecting your network. We are going to some common firewall techniques in this article.

1. Software Firewalls

This is known as the Host Firewall and it can be attached to your device. It will use your system CPU and RAM for doing its job. If there are a hundred computers in your network, then you need to install this firewall in every host. Also, you need to configure it for every system. You need expertise in handling this firewall. However, it can help you in checking the data packets of your programs.

2. Hardware Firewalls

Hardware firewalls are special security devices that will be placed between your external and internal networks. These firewalls won’t consume your system CPU and Ram. They are mostly used by large enterprises as they have thousands of systems running in the same network. If you are using a hardware firewall, then you don’t need to install a firewall in every system. However, you still need expertise in managing this firewall.

3. Packet-Filtering Firewall

This is the most basic type of firewall available in the market. It will act as a security checkpoint which will be attached to your router. Packet-Filtering Firewall will check all the network traffic that is coming in your network. This type of firewall can deny data packets from your network. If it thinks that some data packet is malicious, then it will block it.

4. Circuit-Level Gateways

This type of firewall will observe TCP sessions and connections. Its main aim is to ensure that all your connections are safe. This type of firewall is mostly found in software firewalls. They will check the transaction and ensure that it is safe.

5. Proxy Firewalls

This firewall will act as an intermediate system between your external and internal systems. It will protect your network by redirecting requests to a proxy server. The proxy server will act as your system substitute. It will forward the client’s request to the server. For example, if you are visiting a website then your proxy server will send the request to the webserver. It will act as the main client and hide your information. The web server will then send data to the proxy server which will be forwarded to you.

6. Next-Generation Firewalls

These are the most famous firewalls available in the market as it combines the functions of other firewalls. It will check both the header part and the payload part of your data packets. These are different from the traditional firewalls as they check the entire data. Also, they include deep packet inspection, surface-level, and TCP handshakes.

You can protect your network by using this firewall. It will protect you from intrusion, external threats, and malware attacks. These devices are flexible when compared to other firewalls.

7. Firewall-as-a-Service (FaaS)

FaaS or cloud firewall is a cloud solution that will help you in protecting your network. It is maintained by a third-party provider. Clients mainly use these cloud firewalls as their proxy servers. However, you can configure these cloud firewalls according to your needs. They don’t depend on your physical resources and you can easily scale up.

Which Firewall Solution is perfect for your enterprise?

You need to consider many things before choosing a firewall. Many companies are also using multiple firewalls for protecting their systems. The choice will mainly depend on your organization size. If you have a large organization, then hardware firewalls are perfect for you. However, SMBs should stick with software firewalls. You also need to consider your resources before going for the firewall. If you have a large IT budget, then you can install a separate firewall in your systems.

You can build firewall architecture by considering these points. If you want to create multiple security layers, then you can use multiple security devices. This will ensure that your internal network can block malicious traffic. If you need more information regarding data security, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.