Every single day, you and your company are at risk of a data breach. No matter what kind of preventative measures you have in place, no matter what industry you’re part of, no matter what size organization you run, there is somebody out there willing to pay cyber criminals for your information.
Your business is your baby and leaving your child vulnerable could lead to irreversible negative defects. RedNight Consulting is a local parent in Aliso Viejo, California, and we know that you’d never leave your child vulnerable so we’re here to help you implement the first and most effective line of defense against the scum of the web: a quality business firewall.
As your first line of defense, a firewall is a piece of hardware or complex software system designed to allow internet traffic from business partners and customers to pass through to your network. In contrast, this same device keeps out anything that may have an unauthorized request to your network. Since these devices are designed to keep out unauthorized users from accessing your network, it’s much more difficult for hackers to gain access to any information stored within your network. In addition to providing this essential first layer of security, modern firewalls can do some other really helpful things for you.
RedNight advises using the logging features that are built into most top of the line firewall systems. These will allow your network administrator or consulting team to view the types of traffic flowing in and out of your network, wildly increasing the chances of capturing malicious activity before it’s too late.
There are a large variety of firewalls available on the market. It’s important to understand what you want to get out of the business firewall you are about to implement. Most firewalls are broken down into three categories:
Packet Sniffers/Filters
These will take a peek at each individual packet trying to get into your network. The packets are decoded then the headers of each packet are identified and funneled through a specific set of rules that are put in place for your business. If the packet passes the test, they’re allowed to proceed. If they don’t, they’re rejected and logged in a report for the admin.
Stateful Inspection
This is a more strict type of business firewall. These firewalls will decode the packets down to the application layer, acquiring IP addresses and completing full logs of almost everything. Typically, this will happen for both incoming and outgoing packets, rather than just the incoming packets.
Proxy Firewalls
The most expensive and secure, the proxy firewall is a more thorough line of defense often used by the military and medical industries. Proxy firewalls are located offsite in almost all scenarios. A connection is opened between your local network and the remote firewall. The firewall is a powerhouse that looks at every bit in every layer of every packet, makes a decision, then closes the connection. Another connection reopens, sometimes in another location, to decrypt the new set of packets.
Read our blog: “Why Cisco Meraki Offers the Best Firewall Option for Businesses”
At RedNight Consulting, we will work with you to identify the areas of need and what would be the best price point to start looking at. With the constant evolution of technology, comes the increase in risk. Be ready. Be prepared.
We gladly support and implement any type of firewall infrastructure, understanding that the universal and expansive nature of your business may influence your current and future needs in different ways.