What are the functions of Fierwall?
A personal firewall is an application which controls network traffic to and from a computer, permitting or denying communications based on a security policy. ... Unlike network firewalls, many personal firewalls are able to control network traffic allowed to programs on the secured computer.
- Provides security features.
- Can configure security policies.
Types of fierwalls-
- Packet-filtering firewalls.
- Stateful inspection firewalls.
- Circuit-level gateways.
- Application-level gateways (a.k.a. proxy firewalls)
- Next-gen firewalls
Pro's-
- A firewall blocks "evil packets" from being "permitted to reach a place where they can do harm
- The individual system's operating system-based firewall can be configured to provide a great deal of security, but a network-based firewall, such as a router, can protect multiple systems simultaneously.
Con's-
- Packet filtering by a software firewall can degrade your system's performance, because it's a demanding task to examine every packet of data.
- configuring and maintaining the firewall can be a difficult.
- A network firewall also can lend users a false sense of security, encouraging them not to maintain security at the machine level.
- If the network firewall fails or is not configured properly, this could prove disastrous.
