Many are familiar with the term ‘firewall’ in reference to the construction of apartments, offices, or homes. A firewall is a separation between units or rooms that prevents a fire from spreading from one room to another. Firewalls can limit the amount of damage caused by a fire and even save lives. The same is true of firewalls on the internet – they prevent one computer from compromising another computer. They make it possible to filter incoming and outgoing traffic that flows through your system. Internet firewalls may not save your life, but it can save your identity.
There are two types of firewalls: software and hardware. A software firewall resides on the computer itself and monitors all of the network traffic on that computer. This is essential for users who travel. You don’t want to take any chances when you are connected to the internet away from home or the office. A hardware firewall is a physical device connected between the internet and your computer system. It may actually be another computer or a dedicated piece of equipment. Many routers even have built-in firewalls. While antivirus software helps to protect against unwanted programs, a firewall helps to keep external threats from getting access to your system in the first place. Businesses should require a combination of both to better secure their system.
Whether you are protecting against hackers or random worms and viruses, firewalls are your best line of defense. Individual hackers may be just looking to crash computers or networks while others are searching for confidential data to use for profit, such as contracts, financial data, or customer account information. Even organizations with little or no confidential information need firewalls to protect their networks from automated attackers. Worms will use your computer to spread and attack other systems on your network, wasting your resources and bandwidth. Essentially, you become part of the problem. The worm or virus can also open up a new back door into your system to allow someone else to compromise your privacy and abuse your computer.
All computers deserve the protection of a firewall, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company with thousands of servers and desktops, a traveling salesperson’s on a laptop, or a stay-at-home mom on a PC. Cybertrails, offering SonicWALL or Cisco Systems protection, can meet the needs of your system and budget to make sure you are safe and secure.
