Why Do You Need a Hardware Firewall for Your Small Network?

it is necessary for any size of business today. Even if you're a small company with 5 to 10 computers, you will need an internet connection to browse the Web, send and receive e-mail to communicate with customers, partners and suppliers, or even for net banking. Now, since you have an Internet connection of their networks, computers, servers are exposed to the world. May you get a virus, spyware, spam e-mails and many other things. Your employees will start spending more time on social networks like Facebook, Orkut. So, let's talk about a solution.

You will need a hardware firewall or UTM (AKA - Unified Threat Management) to protect the network from viruses, spyware, hackers and control Internet use. The hardware firewall or UTM also allows you to monitor Internet use, web pages viewed and acquisitions.

Let's look at the hardware firewall and how to help? The hardware firewall is a device that is connected between the network and Internet connection, to filter all traffic coming to your network from the Internet and go out of your network. Generally each device UTM will be mainly 3 zones - LAN, WAN and DMZ (where you can connect to the server). This will allow the firewall to block or allow access to the network or the network.

Here are some features of the hardware firewall or UTM

user authentication: user authentication feature is where the firewall will be able to identify the user and can create firewall policies, rules, and web access policies based on user name instead of IP address. There are some firewall devices that allow you to use Active Directory Synchronization and Single SSO.

Load Balance and failure : This feature allows you to use multiple internet connections. If you have more than one internet connection, you can use both connections at the same time, you can also opt to go through that internet connection. If any of your Internet connection fails, the device will automatically switch to a working internet connection.

firewall management rules: with the firewall rules, you can block or open ports for incoming or outgoing traffic. You can allow or deny a connection with a specific IP or MAC address for access to certain IP or port.

Security Gateway: Many UTM devices, including Cyberoam UTM comes with Gateway AntiVirus for web, e-mail, FTP and HTTPS traffic. This feature will help you protect your network, servers, desktop PCs from viruses coming from the Internet. All of these viruses will be blocked before it can enter your network.

IPS / IDS:. IPS and IDS features enhances security by monitoring network traffic and protects against attacks at the application level, and intrusion attack

web filtering: web filtering feature allows you to block certain web sites for the entire company, or you can block specific sites or groups of pages or categories for a particular user or group. Let me give you an example here, you will only allow banks and other commercial sites for the accounts and transactions related to the HR web site, but social networking, chat and free e-mail will be blocked for all.

Bandwidth Management: can determine the bandwidth of users or groups. This will allow you to give more speed to people who need a better internet speed, and limiting those who do not need high speed internet.

Reporting: Firewall stores logs of websites visited by users, the data downloaded and time spent. You can view logs of their activities, you can also check the frequently used categories and those who use or take the maximum of data.

I'm sure it gave you a clear picture of what a hardware firewall or UTM can do for you and why you should. There are many popular brands, including SonicWALL, Cyberoam, FortiGate, watchuard, Astaro, etc.

Posted in: hardware firewall, hardware firewall small network