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Firewalls protect internal network hosts from malicious data and traffic by filtering incoming and outgoing packets. Using firewall rules, administrators can restrict access to applications or resources within a protected network, allowing only authorized users to access critical systems. Firewalls also monitor traffic in real-time, detecting abnormal activities and mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks quickly to minimize impact on business operations.

Firewall manufacturers, such as Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Check Point, and Sophos, produce both hardware and software firewall solutions to protect a variety of different network environments and infrastructures. They offer both specialized firewall products and hybrid mesh firewalls, which combine traditional firewall capabilities with an intrusion prevention system (IPS) to improve security and performance.

Network layer firewalls, or packet filters, inspect packets at a relatively low level of the TCP/IP protocol stack. They allow or block traffic based on pre-defined rules that include source and destination IP addresses, ports, or protocols. However, this type of firewall can be vulnerable to malicious activity such as phishing emails or unsecured web applications because malware may bypass network layer inspection and enter the protected environment via permitted ports or protocols.

Stateful inspection firewalls, on the other hand, evaluate the entire context of a network connection, based on established connections and the information contained in incoming packets. These devices maintain a table of open connections and compare it to incoming packets. If a packet matches an existing connection, it’s typically allowed through without further examination. Otherwise, it’s evaluated according to the rules for new connections.