END-POINT PORTECTION
Firewall do we need it? By Kenneth Brewer ©June, 27th 2012
The most effective way to prevent something from falling and spilling is to set it on the floor in the first place.
If you’re reading this you most likely have a computer. If you have a computer it would be wise to protect it. Perhaps you might ask,” why, I don’t keep my banking or do anything on there that other people can use against me”? That might be true, on the surface, however it is never what it seems and you will never know what someone will use against or take away from you.
Never believe that what little information you have on your computer is so innocent and incorruptible that you don’t need protection. WRONG! Everything you own is yours and everything you put on an internet enabled device is now accessible in way or another. Diaries, photos, personal letters, e-mails, account info and so much more. Mothers madden name your pets and spouse, kids and passwords, and these are just a beginning, in the mountain of possibilities that can be infiltrated by these few you may have heard of; spam laced with Viruses, Trojans, and keystroke monitoring programs.
Bottom line is how much can your life be lost or exploited if someone wanted to mess with your life that surrounds you. Even the youngest of person to grandparents are or can be at risk at any time.
We all want to protect our family, right? We all want to protect what little we have, money, home and family and our jobs. Yes your employment can be at risk too. Credit fraud is a billion dollar (fraudulent) industry that affects everyone. The results to you are devastating. Many employment recruiters look at the credit scores and financial backgrounds of their prospects for determining risk factors when being considered for hire.
Primary defense using a firewall
The Industry giants like Wally world, Banks, and Card companies have safety policies in place for this, however even they can prevent total penetration from outsiders or even corruptible insiders. Hope is not lost; protections from threats are handled through safety measures that include a physical and logical firewall. Deployed along with a stringent protocol policy used organizational wide. Industry Giants had software developed to prevent unwanted intruders, and because of this a less costly version is passed along to non-industry use, providing the same or similar technology that you as a computer user can deploy.
You should have a hardware firewall (such as a router) to protect your network, however you should implement the use of a software firewall on each computer to help prevent the spread of a virus within your network (meaning more than one device on one system in home or office) if one of the computers do become infected.
How firewalls work
Like in Windows the Firewall will help provide protection from mischievous users and programs that rely on unwelcome incoming traffic that are setup to attack computers. In the server arena, Windows Firewall integrates intelligent design so out-going traffic is configured using the Advanced Security snap-in which incorporates or uses certain rules for firewall behavior, giving traffic protection within the Internet Protocol and its rules of security.
In a previous story line I wrote about the network policy incorporated into any business, or even home use for that matter as a first line of defense. I stand by that statement and article. Most importantly what must be remembered that along with the wordy policy, which a physical boundary must need to be put into place. This is called a FIREWALL. After all the weakest link in a chain is one that breaks. A good mechanic can predetermine that weak link. Your IT person is that mechanic that can search out and find out most weak links.
Figuring out what to do is simple for most companies by conducting an evaluation of your system. It can be started by conducting an Overview, Product evaluation, and its Design, then Deployment.
In review, the firewall is design to protect/prevent your device from hackers and unwanted intrusion that can delete your data, slow and crash your device (computer) steal passwords, credit card info and some undetermined amount of other problems that can happen from the results of an attack.
Bottom line is, “yes you need a firewall”!
Helpful Website and resources:
Firewall resources: Check Point, Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto and Sonic Wall
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