Firewalls
A firewall is a device (it can be implemented in hardware or software) that protects your computer and network by controlling the flow of network traffic. It acts as a filter, allowing only approved network traffic “in” or “out” depending on rules that you define.
A hardware firewall is typically a physical device (or sometimes a dedicated computer) that protects a portion of your network. Most home networks need only a single firewall at the point where the internet connection enters your home. However, if you have a lot of computers in your home (as the Paladin does) you might find yourself wanting to have more than one firewall (the Paladin does…but then again he is a certified computer geek!).
A software firewall typically runs on a specific computer and protects just that machine.
ThePaladin feels that a hardware firewall is superior protection as versus a software firewall , though there is a place on your computer network for both types of firewalls. The reason he prefers a hardware firewall has to do with failure modes. You see, if your hardware firewall fails for some reason, the most likely result is that there will be NO access to your home computer network from the public internet. This is a desirable failure mode as it still protects your network and it is likely to come to your attention immediately in the case that you lose your outbound network connections as well.
A failure in a software firewall running on your computer may result in the firewall simply not working anymore. In this case, your computer(s) is left wide open to people trying to connect to it from the public internet. This is not a good failure mode.
But before you decide that software firewalls are “bad” and that hardware firewalls are “good” you need to know that there are some protective tasks that the Paladin feels a software firewall performs better than a hardware firewall.
For instance, some attacks by the Anti-Programmers involve installing a software program on your computer that logs everything that you type (this is called a keyboard logger). At some later time the program will attempt to transmit this data back to its “owner.” A person would do this because after analyzing your keyboard log they may be able to determine user names and passwords to anything you accessed while the keyboard logger was installed. A software firewall is much better at blocking unauthorized outgoing network traffic than a hardware firewall is. That is why it is good to have both types of firewalls on your network.
IMPORTANT
No matter what, if you have an “always on” internet connection (such as a cable modem, DSL, etc…pretty much anything that is not a dial up connection) it is imperative that you get a hardware firewall. Consider this REQUIRED EQUIPMENT!
Today, hardware firewalls are often built into other devices such as routers, while software firewalls are often included either in the operating system or in other software packages such as anti-virus programs.
But for more details on each of these types of firewalls, along with some handy links to where you can purchase such items and have them delivered directly to your door, see the following linked pages below: