Networking - External security - Firewall

(continued....)

Diy-Computer-Repair can help!

External security for your network.

To secure your network from invasion you need to setup a defense. This defense can be hardware, software, or both. The main player in this defense is called a firewall. You can get a firewall either in your hardware, such as programmed into a router, or with software, such as a program. Either or both will monitor traffic from outside your network that is inbound and traffic that is inside your network that is outbound. Your highest security lies in using both the hardware and the software. I recommend both; the hardware firewall is in non volatile memory and can not be hacked. The software is on your side of the hardware and is less venerable to a hacker. The part of the firewall that does the monitoring is called a rule. You or your system administrator will create the rules that allow only certain types of traffic through your firewall.

Example:
Let’s say you have a business and you have five employees, one day you get a call from you ISP (Internet Service Provider) that someone from your local network has been doing something that the ISP prohibits. You could fire everyone, or you could ask the ISP what port the offending service is using to access the Internet. With the port number you can write or create a rule that will turn the port off and not allow any traffic inbound or outbound. If you want to know who is the employee that is putting your business at risk you can use the same rule to track the ip address of the offending computer.

Hardware Security -
For hardware security you can start with your workstations and or servers. Items that increase your security included but are not limited to:

•  Secure Card Logon
•  Encrypting the hard drives in the computer system
•  Requiring user id and password to access the system BIOS and hardware.

For your network you can start with your hubs or switches.

• Require user id and password to modify parameters.

Use of a router that has the firewall as part of the non volatile memory that incorporates NAT (Network Access Translation) rules to increase the security of your connection to the Internet.

Physical security -

Securing all devices behind locked doors at all times, controlling access to the devices is a must. Allow only authorized personnel to access the devices. This will preclude an intruder from accessing the device or someone with out the required knowledge or security clearance from changing the configuration of your prime defense against intrusion or theft of your data.

(continued....)

Do It yourself Computer Repair E-Book

Thank you for visiting my web site, and please come back again.

Reqires the free
Flash Player
download it here

Custom Search