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best defense against hackers may be knowlege plus some software.
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Firewalls, What are they?
A term you hear often is “firewalls.” But what is
a firewall? A firewall is a wall between two rooms or spaces
which prevents, or hopes to prevent, fire from spreading from
one room to another. So if one room catches on fire the fire
will not be able to breach or break through the firewall to reach
and damage the other room. Firewalls are not absolute barriers
but serve to prevent most openings or slow the fire’s damage.
A firewall on the internet is similar—it serves to prevent
one computer from compromising another computer.
There are two types of firewalls used currently:
software and hardware. A software firewall is a computer program
running on
a computer which performs it’s duties on that computer.
We will discuss its duties in a moment but now realize that a
software firewall is just bits of code on a computer. A hardeware
firewall is a physical piece of equipment designed to perform
firewall duties. A hardware firewall may actually be another
computer or a dedicated piece of equipment with its only function
being serving as a firewall.
So what does a internet firewall do? The reality
of the situation is that it keeps out malicious hackers and
people who seek to
do damage and/or take over other peoples’ servers. Firewalls
really serve no other purpose. Firewalls seek to limit the access
to a server or computer and let in only the people who need to
be there. Firewalls also attempt to limit the impact of computer
viruses from spreading and preventing individuals from running
a DOS attack. (A DOS attack is a Denial of Service attack which
attempts to stop the server from responding or running on the
internet by flooding it with millions of attacks.) By having
a good firewall you eliminate some risks with a computer on the
internet and hopefully keep out the malicious people. Will a
firewall guarantee that a server will not be compromised? No,
but like a real firewall, it does slow the fire, or in this case
the attacks, so they can be dealt with before the real damage
is done. Firewalls constantly have to be tweaked or fine-tuned
to keep out the latest tricks and traps set by the hackers.
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