The Four Components of a Firewall
Firewalls protect your devices and networks from cyber attacks by regulating traffic based on pre-established security rules. Firewalls can be either software or hardware and they create a barrier between your network and the outside world to prevent threats from entering. They also work like a security guard to verify that any person or entity trying to enter the building (network) is safe.
Whether it’s at home, school, or work, all networks need protection from unwanted traffic. Without a firewall, threat actors can access your systems and steal or corrupt data, crash systems, or initiate a Man-in-the-Middle attack. Firewalls monitor incoming and outgoing traffic and block access to unsafe websites or media files that can compromise your systems.
There are four primary components of a firewall: network policy, advanced authentication, packet filtering, and application gateways. In this article, we’ll explore each of these and how they play a role in keeping your network secure from cyber attacks.
The first component is a firewall’s network policy. Network policies set up and implement the rules that determine what services the firewall will allow or deny, including how those services would be used on your network.
The next component is a firewall’s packet-filtering capability. Packet-filtering firewalls analyze each incoming and outgoing data packet, and only allow or block data packets that match pre-established security rules. Packet-filtering firewalls can be stateless or stateful. Stateful firewalls keep track of each individual packet and can be more sophisticated than stateless firewalls.