CMGT 400 Week 2 Discussion: Firewalls and Evasion

Resource: Practice Lab: Firewalls and Evasion (SYO-501)

A firewall is a device that prevents unauthorized access to a host or a network either from within the corporate environment or coming from the public network, like the internet. Generally, there are two types of firewalls. A hardware firewall takes the form of a closed proprietary appliance with its own operating system. This is considered faster but a bit expensive. A software firewall is installed on a computer and it utilizes the computer’s operating system. Firewalls either hardware or software use rules to filter incoming and outgoing traffic to the network.

Discuss how you could use firewalls to support organizational security? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using hardware and software-based firewalls? What software tools could you use to assess the security of the firewalls used to protect your organization’s computer architecture? How can you bypass blocked sites using anonymous website surfing sites?