Firewall Information and Hardware Setup Guide - Software Firewalls and Hardware Firewalls

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Software firewalls

These are programs that reside on your computer which provide firewall functions.  The most popular one is ZoneAlarm, but there are many others that work just as well.  When Microsoft issued Windows XP, they included an integrated Windows Firewall which, while by no means the most secure, is better than nothing at all.  The advantage of software firewalls is that most can police both incoming and outgoing data, where hardware firewalls generally do only the former.

Why monitor outgoing data?  Most users aren’t fully aware of the number of programs on their computers that are “dialing home” on a regular basis.  Sure, most probably know their antivirus scanning software is calling out regularly for signature updates, and most XP users have autoupdate enabled, but there are a myriad other programs and utilities that want to search the internet for possible updates.  Even worse, spyware and Trojans need to report back to their controllers.  The best way for a hacker to circumvent a hardware firewall is by getting a Trojan onto a target computer and letting it dial out to them.

Software firewalls may also be referred to as personal firewalls when used in conjunction with hardware firewalls.

Hardware firewalls

Hardware firewalls include network switches and routers with built-in firewall capability as well as dedicated “firewall appliances” which sit between a network and the internet or between two zones of a network.

Unlike software firewalls, they don’t have to compete for resources on the user’s computer, nor are they dependant upon an operating system which might not be all that secure.  Depending on configuration and available options, they perform network address translation, port management and some can perform content and URL filtering (preventing users from accessing certain web sites based on the URL or restricting access to a specified list of URLs only).

Next: Who Needs a Firewall? >>
 

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