The application of firewalls in a network system provides numerous benefits to network administrators. Fred Simonds advises in his book Network Security that a firewall can provide controlled access of individual users, enhanced privacy of the organization and its data, and provide a single point of contact between the Internet and the interior network (263). There are also three different types of firewalls each providing a different approach for providing security to a network system as indicated by Lars Klander in his book Hacker Proof (84). .
Rita C. Summers provides the following definition of a firewall in her book, Secure Computing: "A firewall is a collection of components placed between an inner network and an outer network to achieve the following goals:.
- all traffic must pass through the firewall.
- only traffic that is authorized by the inner network's security policy is allowed to pass.
- the firewall can not be penetrated." (506).
In simpler terms, a firewall acts to keep intruders out and allow only authorized users in. In achieving these goals, a firewall protects computers from hostile intrusion that could compromise confidentiality or initiate lost or corrupted data. .
One benefit to having a firewall installed to a network is to provide controlled access among the legitimate users and their access to various external and internal databases and applications (Klander, p. 75). A firewall can be set up to only allow a limited amount of access to certain individuals based on the context or nature of their job. It may be designed to restrict access to information belonging to other departments or branches of the company.
A second benefit to installing a firewall to a network is enhanced privacy (Simonds, p. 263). A firewall keeps vital data inside the organization. A firewall prevents the rest of the world from accessing your private network and the data on that network (Klander, p.
