Small Business Firewall

By Ki Grinsing (MCSE and CCNA Engineer)

In this article I will discuss the important of business firewall.

1. Overview
2. What is firewall
3. Who needs firewall
4. Why business firewall
5. Firewall Appliances

Overview

In each of the organizations, the computer networking infrastructure is very essential to build to support the operation of the businesses.  All the business resources are shared across the network including the storage which stores all the information of the business, office equipment (such as multi-function printer, scanner) and other communication systems. All of these network resources are vital to support the operation of the business. It is therefore protecting them against any types of network threats is a must especially for the data (the information).

Business firewall is typically used to protect the network against any types of internet threats. Firewall as the first line of defense must be deployed in each of the entry point of the internet.

What is Firewall?

Firewalls are devices or systems that control the flow of the traffic between your internal / corporate network and the public network (aka the internet). All the connections between the private and the public network must be forced to pass through a single concentrated checkpoint – the firewall. All the traffic that flow via the firewall must be controlled, authenticated, filtered and logged according to the policies set.

The firewall can help reducing the amount of un-authorized traffic to reach the corporate network but you know it cannot completely eliminate them. Firewall can help limit the risk to an internal network of exploitation of vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP protocol suite by external parties such as by hackers and other threats.

Who Needs Firewall

As mentioned above, all the organizations that connect to the internet require a firewall as a standard protection against the internet threats. However not just networks that have internet connection require firewalls. Corporate or enterprise networks may utilize firewalls to restrict connectivity to and from internal networks servicing more sensitive functions. By employing firewalls to control connectivity to these areas, unauthorized access to the respective systems and resources within the more sensitive areas can be prevented.

Why (Small) Business Firewall

Typically home wireless routers support the dual firewall feature (NAT and SPI). Network Address Translation (NAT) is the technical foundation which all the firewalls and routers are based on. This is a standard protection where private or internal networks are hidden from the public internet.

Business firewalls provide you comprehensive control over the packets that flow between the corporate / internal network and the public network. They allow you control how traffic between the networks flow, how internal hosts communicate with external hosts and via which ports, which ports and which hosts are allowed to flow from the internet to the corporate networks, and still lots of control you can perform to meet your business needs.

Business Firewall Appliances

Each of the organizations requires a suitable business firewall to interconnect to public or un-trusted network due to emerging threats that exist. This helps protecting the sensitive nature of information located within the private network. Most firewalls support the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) – a security boundary network that allows you hosting any public resources in a secure way.

There are many types of business firewalls in the market you can choose to meet your business needs ranging form the small scale to large scale enterprise networks. The following lists some of the business firewalls you can consider to support your organizations.

Juniper SSG5 and SSG20

The Juniper Networks® SSG5 and SSG20 Secure Services Gateways are designed for small businesses either for standalone businesses or branch offices. They are high performance gateway / firewall appliances that help you stop un-authorized access both from internal and external threats. They can deliver 160 Mbps of stateful firewall traffic and 40 Mbps of IPsec VPN traffic.

To protect the network against any external threats including the worms, viruses, Trojans horse, spam, and emerging malware, the firewall is backed-up by third party partners in delivering the UTM features.  To protect the network against any internal threats these business firewalls support the security zones, virtual routers and VLANs. These features allow you create network segregations based on the security policies to meet your business needs.

Read more detail about the manufacturer’s description and specs for Juniper SSG5 and SSG20 here.

Sonicwall TZ Series

The other high performance small business firewall appliances that are available in the market is Sonicwall TZ series. TZ series provides high performance protection including comprehensive anti-spam, application intelligence and control. You can upgrade to support the UTM protection by adding including the Comprehensive Anti-Spam Service to its arsenal of Gateway Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, Intrusion Prevention, Application Intelligence and Control2, Enforced Client Anti-Virus, and Content Filtering services.

Click here for more detail about the Sonicwall TZ Series to support your small to medium businesses.

Cisco SA500 Series Security Appliances

Cisco SA500 Series are all-in-one devices designed for small businesses with less than 100 employees. They are network security appliances that combine the functions of business firewall, VPN (Virtual private network), and affordable optional services including intrusion prevention system (IPS), email, and web security capabilities.

For more detail click here Cisco SA500 Series manufacturer description.

See also:

• an example of IT security risk assessment
• Sonicwall NSA 2400 Multi-core Network Security Appliances
• Small business Network security software
• VLAN – Virtual LAN Tutorial
• Management of information security for corporate networks
• LAN Topologies