The Internet provides organizations with new opportunities to connect with customers, partners, and employees. While this presents great opportunities, it also introduces new risks and concerns such as security, performance, and manageability. ISA server – Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server is Microsoft Firewall that addresses the needs of today’s Internet-enabled businesses.
ISA server – a Microsoft Firewall provides a multilayered firewall that helps protect your network resources. The Web cache of ISA Server enables organizations to save network bandwidth and provide faster Web access for users by serving objects from a local source, rather than over a periodically congested Internet.
Microsoft Firewall can provide value to information technology managers, network administrators and information-security professionals in organizations of all sizes, who are concerned about the security, performance, manageability or operating costs of their networks. ISA Server can be used in a spectrum of scenarios, ranging from small offices and branch offices, to Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web hosting companies, and to e-commerce sites.
ISA Server Microsoft Firewall secures your network, allowing you to implement your business security policy by configuring a broad set of rules that specify which sites, protocols, and content can pass through the ISA Server computer. Microsoft Firewall ISA Server monitors requests and responses between the Internet and internal client computers, controlling who can access which computers on the corporate network. ISA Server also controls which computers on the Internet can be accessed by internal clients.
Microsoft firewall ISA Server offers many security options, including packet filtering and intrusion detection. You can create access policies based on user-level information or Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and control when the rule will be applied.
Microsoft firewall ISA Server allows you publish hosts securely. You can use ISA Server to define a publishing policy, protecting the internal publishing servers and making them safely accessible to Internet clients.
Internet Connectivity with Strong Security
ISA Server can be deployed as a dedicated firewall that acts as the secure gateway to the Internet for internal clients. By setting the access policies, administrators can prevent unauthorized access and malicious content from entering the network as well as restrict outbound traffic.
Microsoft firewall ISA Server presents you with a comprehensive solution for securing network access. ISA Server includes the following firewall and security features:
Outgoing access policy
You can use Microsoft firewall ISA Server to configure site and content rules and protocol rules that control how your internal clients access the Internet. Site and content rules specify which sites and content can be accessed. Protocol rules indicate whether a particular protocol is accessible for inbound or outbound communication.
Intrusion detection
Integrated intrusion detection mechanisms can alert you when a specific attack is launched against your network. For example, you can configure the ISA Server computer to alert you if a port scanning attempt is detected.
System Security Wizard
The ISA Server Security Wizard enables you to lock down Windows 2000 and later by setting the appropriate level of security, using predefined templates.
Application filters
Microsoft firewall ISA Server analyzes and controls application-specific traffic with application-aware filters that inspect the actual data. You can enable intelligent filtering of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), e-mail, H.323 conferencing, streaming media, remote procedure call (RPC), and more.
VPN support
ISA Server includes standards-based, secure remote access with the integrated virtual private networking (VPN) services.
Assessing Client Requirements
Microsoft firewall ISA Server supports the following types of clients:
Web Proxy clients
A Web Proxy client sends requests directly to the ISA Server, but Internet access is limited to the browser. You can configure Web browsers that support HTTP 1.1 as Web Proxy clients.
SecureNAT clients
Secure network address translation (SecureNAT) clients provide security and caching, but do not allow for user-level authentication. To configure a SecureNAT client, you only have to set the default gateway on the client computer to the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the ISA Server. Because a SecureNAT client requires no configuration other than changing the default gateway, any computer that uses Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) can be a SecureNAT client.
Firewall clients
Firewall clients restrict access on a per-user basis for outbound access for requests that use TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). To configure a Firewall client, you must install the Firewall client program on each client computer.
Microsoft firewall – ISA server is recommended for a large scale organization in securing the corporate network from the un-trusted network such as Internet. Deploying the Microsoft firewall – ISA server should follow the firewall security guidelines to securely the corporate network.
For small office home office (SOHO) or wireless home networking, the wireless firewall appliances are recommended. Wireless firewall is very economical and provides a proper security features such as basic NAT and SPI as well as VPN pass-through capability.
Check also related posts: firewall and router ports, knowing most used router/firewall ports, and also knowing router problems.
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