We are on the Systems 2001 (held from 15 to 19 November 2001)
No other market in the IT experiences such boosts as computer security. The increasing popularity of business intranetworking and being connected to the Internet requires securing the company network not only against viruses that are introduced offline via diskettes, but also against hackers who work online. Even decision makers have already recognized this.
When a company is connected directly to the Internet, it seldom takes long until the first invasion attempt. The author's record is 4 hours from connecting a company until the first invasion attempt from the Internet. Without a firewall the companies do not even notice that they have been invaded.
A firewall today must perform many different duties, of which protecting the local network is only the most important, but by far not the only one. It must
| • | protect the own network against intrusions from the Internet |
| • | announce intrusion attempts |
| • | prevent successful attacks |
| • | regulate internet access with regard to time, users or workstations |
| • | support NAT (network address translation) and/or masquerading |
| • | check and filter data for viruses and other unwelcome contents |
| • | block non-productive access, e.g. to sex sites |
| • | cache HTML and FTP access |
| • | supply statistics about uesd services and e.g. web access |
| • | allow distribution of costs among departments of a company |
| • | be transparent to the users |
| • | allow VPN (virtual private network) with several sites |
| • | allow the boss access to the network from his home-PC |
| • | support any number of network segments |
| • | allow remote administration |
| • | be reliable and stable |
| • | perform well and without delay |
| • | make administtation and updates easy |
One thing is absolutely clear with this list that makes no claim to completeness: a classic packet filter by itself is not enough.
When you buy a firewall you have the choice among hundreds. If you substitute the word "firewall" with the word "car" (I want to buy a new car), you see why the price span for a firewall ranges from the price of a ten year old Fiat Uno to that of a brand new Rolls-Royce.
And as when buying a new car you have to look closely at the standard equipment. If such a thing is possible at all, for a firewall with all mentioned features a six-digit price will be due.
But you can get it for much less money, and without any quality loss:
with LinuxWall.