Firewalls are a key part of keeping networked computers safe and secure. All computers deserve the protection of a firewall, whether it’s the thousands of servers and desktops that compose the network of a Fortune 500 company, a traveling salesperson’s laptop connecting to the wireless network of a coffee shop, or your grandmother’s new PC with a dial-up connection to the Internet.
This article covers the design, deployment, and use of both network and host-based firewalls (also called personal firewalls). Although home users have traditionally used only host-based firewalls, recent trends in security exploits highlight the importance of using both types of firewalls together. Traditional firewall architectures protect only the perimeter of a network. However, once an attacker penetrates that perimeter, internal systems are completely unprotected. Hybrid worms, in particular, have penetrated corporate networks through email systems, and then have spread quickly to unprotected internal systems. Applying host-based firewalls to all systems, including those behind the corporate firewall, should now be standard practice.
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