Just like a football team’s defense attempts to prevent the offence from scoring a touchdown, a firewall attempts to protect your network from unauthorized attempts to access your system, including hackers, viruses, and malicious code.
A firewall can be hardware, software or both. A firewall is part of the network that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic, determines whether to block or allow traffic based on predetermined rules, and acts as your organization’s first line of defense in securing and controlling internal networks.
Does your organization need a firewall? If it allows access to the internet and has multiple users on your network, the answer is most assuredly “yes.” Most of your devices’ operating systems (phones, computers, tablets) come with a basic built-in firewall. For best results, however, you should also incorporate a dedicated firewall application into your business.
A firewall:
A good firewall application will:
In the past, firewalls may have been responsible for slowing down a network, but today’s firewalls operate without affecting your network’s performance.
Even after you incorporate an organizational firewall, you still need to manage it correctly and incorporate complementary measures – including VPNs, SSL/TLS encryption, strong passwords, and employee training – to ensure you have the best possible data protection and network security.
If you have questions about your organization’s existing firewall or security, or want to incorporate firewall security into your organization, contact Michael Anderson at michael@365tech.ca. We are always happy to answer your questions.