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Importance of Firewall in Internet world!!!

Anyone connected to the internet must have heard the term ‘firewalls’ But what exactly the firewall is? Basically it’s a separation between room or sections, which prevents, fire from spreading from one room to another. So if one room catches on fire the fire will not be able to damage the other room due to the fire wall. A firewall on the internet is also similar—it serves to prevent one computer from compromising another computer.

Currently there are 2 types of firewalls used:

1) Software firewall:

A software firewall is a computer program running on a computer which performs it’s duties on that computer. They are just bits of code on a computer.

2) Hardware Firewall:

It is physical piece of equipment designed to perform firewall duties. A hardware firewall may actually be another computer or a dedicated piece of equipment which only serve as a firewall.

Firewalls keeps out malevolent hackers and people who intended to do damage and take over other peoples’ servers. Firewalls really serve no other purpose. Firewalls seek to limit the access to a server or computer and let in only the people who need to be there.

Whenever a packet of information triggers one of the filters, the firewall prevents it from passing through in the attempt to prevent damage. Of course, firewalls sometimes block wanted traffic, and through a continual process of refinement, the filters can be customized to improve their efficiency.

Firewalls make it possible to filter incoming and outgoing traffic that flows through your system. A firewall can use one or more sets of ‘rules’ to inspect the network packets as they come in or go out of your network connections and either allows the traffic through or blocks it. The rules of a firewall can inspect one or more characteristics of the packets, including but not limited to the protocol type, the source or destination host address, and the source or destination port.

Thus, by having a good firewall you eliminate some risks with a computer on the internet and hopefully keep out the malicious people. Firewalls constantly have to be tweaked or fine-tuned to keep out the latest tricks and traps set by the hackers.

(Posted By Nia)