Implementation of Corporate Firewall: A study of firewall implementation

Corporate network firewalls are well-understood and are becoming commonplace. The primary method for protecting networks today is to use a firewall: a boundary separating the protected network from the un-trusted Internet. These firewalls establish a security perimeter that aims to block (or heavily restrict) both incoming and outgoing network communication. We argue that these firewalls are neither effective nor appropriate for academic or corporate research environments needing to maintain information security while still supporting the free exchange of ideas. Distributing a firewall to each network host avoids many of these problems, but weakens the security guarantees of the network since it places the firewall under the control of the host Operating System. A firewall protects a network by guarding the points of entry to it. Firewalls are becoming more sophisticated by the day, and new features are constantly being added, so that, in spite of the criticisms made of them and developmental trends threatening them, they are still a powerful protective mechanism.