If you have used the Internet for any amount of time, whether at work or even at home, you have probably heard of the term firewall.
But what exactly is a firewall? And how exactly does it work?
A firewall is a barrier that protects you and your network from harmful forces, based on regulations that you have specifically defined. Basically, a firewall is the ultimate judge of character. When traffic hits a firewall, it determines which traffic passes through to your network and which traffic gets left behind. Every firewall monitors traffic that is moving into your network, but a truly beneficial firewall also observes the traffic leaving your network. Without firewalls you, your business, and your private information are vulnerable to hackers, viruses, and other malicious intruders on the web.
Benefits of Firewalls:
- Protect your network from malicious invasions.
- Monitor and store data. This assists in determining who accesses what type of information and from where this information is being accessed.
- Can complement or supplement content and email filtering solutions.
- Automatically locate and block nearly all email viruses and malware intrusions even before they occur.
- Allow some network users to access certain information but prevent others from doing so, based on your preferences.
- Calculate usage of the internet. This is beneficial in monitoring who spends the most time using the internet and how this affects network performance.
- Can monitor and record outbound traffic and prevent unauthorized access to resources on external networks.
