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Discussion Forum - Firewall Placement

If the word firewall is mentioned in most conversations today, thoughts would immediately zero in on a special wall that is designed to confine or restrict a fire in a building from spreading to other areas in a building. When referring to network security, metaphorically the same can be said of its purpose. Walker (2014) explains that a firewall is an appliance within a network that is designed to protect internal resources from unauthorized external access (Walker, 2015).

Firewalls can be hardware devices with embedded OSs, or software installed on general-purpose computer systems. Firewalls serve two main purposes: controlling access to traffic entering an internal network and controlling traffic leaving an internal network. Currently, with the Microsoft Windows 10 operating systems, the dual hat firewall/antivirus application Windows Defender comes pre-installed with basic protection defaults "on". In this configuration, Windows Defender Antivirus works help protect your device by scanning for malicious or unwanted software and uses real-time protection to scan everything you download or run on your device (Microsoft, 2017).

This is a host-based application demanding a rigid resource standard that if not met will create havoc to system performance. In addition, a firewall placed at the perimeter of a business network can act as the first line of defense in protecting the network by monitoring and analyzing network traffic.

Although the most common use of a firewall is to protect the boundary of an organization's network, some companies use firewalls internally as well to protect network areas containing sensitive data, such as research or accounting information (Harwood, 2015). This firewall at the perimeter can also act as a Network Address Translator (NAT) preventing an outside host from initiating a connection to a host behind the NAT. When using multiple firewalls that have their policies configured properly, the System Administrator can be confident of the collected data and confirm suspicious activity when reviewing the firewall logs.

It is in this manner Christians should be like the Bereans of the early church mentioned in the book of Acts when it says 'now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11, ESV).

If network activity drives your policies and the policies are misconfigured, the impacted to the network can be crippling. NIST SP 800-41 rev 1(2009) states, crafting such policies is quite difficult because throttling and redirecting can cause desired traffic to be lost or have difficult to diagnose transient failures.

So with this in mind, Firewall policies must be carefully considered. Reference Harwood, M. (07/2015).

Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web, 2nd Edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning, Burlington, MA Microsoft, (2017, November 30) Protect your PC.

Retrieved on November 26, 2018, Walker, M. (2015). CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. rs

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