If you often watch TV shows and movies about computers and the Internet, you may have heard one or several of the characters mentioning the term “firewall”. The actor/actress then mentions about breaching the firewall or setting up a stronger firewall. Or maybe at the office you may have heard the tech team discussing about the office network’s firewall. When you hear firewall, you think about buildings and construction, but with computers, what is a firewall?
A firewall is a system that prevents unauthorised access to or from a private network. It can be a software, a physical hardware or even both software and hardware. The firewall examines all data and messages coming in and going out of the network and blocks those that do not meet the security criteria. The firewall is the computer’s first line of security against any malicious programs which could enter your computer and target its vulnerabilities.
In order to further explain what is a firewall, let us examine its methods in securing your computer. Firewalls control traffic by packet filter, application gateway, circuit-level gateway and proxy server. The firewall looks at data, applications, connections and messages entering and leaving the network. It examines the information based on user defined parameters and blocks those which do not meet the security criteria. The firewall filters can be customised based on several conditions such as IP addresses, domain names, protocols and ports and on specific words and phrases. Each site on the internet s given a unique IP address, certain sites can be blocked based on IP address and domain names. Users can also use specific words such as “pornography” or “violence” to filter out data.
A firewall is a system that prevents unauthorised access to or from a private network. It can be a software, a physical hardware or even both software and hardware. The firewall examines all data and messages coming in and going out of the network and blocks those that do not meet the security criteria. The firewall is the computer’s first line of security against any malicious programs which could enter your computer and target its vulnerabilities.
In order to further explain what is a firewall, let us examine its methods in securing your computer. Firewalls control traffic by packet filter, application gateway, circuit-level gateway and proxy server. The firewall looks at data, applications, connections and messages entering and leaving the network. It examines the information based on user defined parameters and blocks those which do not meet the security criteria. The firewall filters can be customised based on several conditions such as IP addresses, domain names, protocols and ports and on specific words and phrases. Each site on the internet s given a unique IP address, certain sites can be blocked based on IP address and domain names. Users can also use specific words such as “pornography” or “violence” to filter out data.
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