How Does A Network Firewall Work

Network Firewall and the Mechanisms behind it

Defense system is to ensure safety.  It could be a metal barrier in a bus to protect the passengers from fire accidents (just in case the engine gets ignited) or it could be a fire resistant wall in buildings to slowdown the fire.

In case of the computers, it is the software/hardware that protects the computer network. This safety mechanism related to computer network is called a network firewall. VRS Computers takes pride in collaborating with the top partners like Cyberoam and WatchGuard to offer our clients the best protection available for their networks and computer systems.

A network firewall is basically a set of rules that decide what traffic should be allowed into the network and what should not. A network firewall protects the network from getting affected by the unauthorised access.  It could be hardware, software or a combination of the two that protects the network in schools, hospitals, offices, businesses etc.  The network firewall also protects the network from unwanted web pages visiting your browser, and also restricts the internal data from crossing the threshold.

There are four types of mechanisms used by firewall that helps protect the data from walking out of the door. Let us see how each one of them help in protecting the data.

Packet Filtering:

Here is what this does. It verifies the outgoing as well as the incoming traffic with the set of rules you define and decides whether to send/block the traffic.

Circuit Level Gateway:

The idea is to route all the incoming data to it.  No other client in the network will get any incoming data, but this gateway. The client machines will then set up the connection with the circuit level gateway. This gateway in turn will decide what to send and what not, to all the clients.

Proxy Server:

A proxy server is an intermediary between the private internal network and the outside network. Ideally, the proxy servers are placed to boost the performance of the network. However, as all the traffic is routed through the proxy server, it begins to act as the firewall once the firewall settings are made to the proxy server.  You can configure the proxy server to allow or block certain websites from entering into the network.

Application Level Gateway:

This is another kind of proxy server. All the clients when place a request to the destination server, they have to pass through the application gateway. Then the application gateway decides if the request can be placed to the destination server by matching it with the configured set of rules. To the outside world, it is just the application gateway making connections with the servers, so the internal network is protected.

For more information on the firewall security for your network, contact VRS Computers at +971 55 5182748.