A firewall is software or firmware that enforces a set of rules about what data packets will be allowed to enter or leave a computer network. A firewall's main purpose is to filter traffic and lower the risk that malicious packets traveling over the public internet will be able to impact the security of a private network. Firewalls are incorporated into a wide variety of networked devices and may also be purchased as stand-alone software applications.
The term firewall is a metaphor that compares a type of physical barrier that's put in place to limit the damage a fire can cause with a virtual barrier that's put in place to limit damage from an external or internal cyberattack. When located at the perimeter of a network, a firewall provides low-level network protection, as well as important logging and auditing functions.
When organizations began moving from mainframe computers and dumb clients to the client-server model, the ability to control access to the server became a priority. Before the first firewalls emerged based on work done in the late 1980s, the only real form of network security was enforced through access control lists (ACLs) residing on routers. ACLs specified which Internet Protocol (IP) addresses were granted or denied access to the network.
The exponential growth of the internet and the resulting increase in connectivity of networks, however, meant that filtering network traffic by IP address alone was no longer enough. Static packet-filtering firewalls, which examine packet headers and use rules to make decisions about what traffic to let through, arguably became the most important part of every network security initiative by the end of the last century.
Read more: what is a network firewall and how does it work
The term firewall is a metaphor that compares a type of physical barrier that's put in place to limit the damage a fire can cause with a virtual barrier that's put in place to limit damage from an external or internal cyberattack. When located at the perimeter of a network, a firewall provides low-level network protection, as well as important logging and auditing functions.
When organizations began moving from mainframe computers and dumb clients to the client-server model, the ability to control access to the server became a priority. Before the first firewalls emerged based on work done in the late 1980s, the only real form of network security was enforced through access control lists (ACLs) residing on routers. ACLs specified which Internet Protocol (IP) addresses were granted or denied access to the network.
The exponential growth of the internet and the resulting increase in connectivity of networks, however, meant that filtering network traffic by IP address alone was no longer enough. Static packet-filtering firewalls, which examine packet headers and use rules to make decisions about what traffic to let through, arguably became the most important part of every network security initiative by the end of the last century.
Read more: what is a network firewall and how does it work
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