firewall Archives - Foster Institute

Stop Attackers Who Bypass Your Firewall: Firewall or Failwall?

Mike Foster — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:00:13 +0000

When a user gets one of those phishing emails about, “click here to…” and the user clicks, that communication just went through and your organization’s firewall probably didn’t even realize what was happening. Other than training users, there is a simple way to make up for the weakness of your organization’s firewall.

It is very important to have a good firewall between your organization and the Internet. Since attackers find many vectors to bypass that firewall, it is crucial to have what is known as a “client firewall” as well. While over-simplified, think of the client firewall as a firewall “program” running on each computer. This simple tool, if utilized properly, will thwart many common security attacks.

Often, your anti-virus suite offers the client firewalls as an inexpensive upgrade. You may already have the tool and it isn’t turned on. A free firewall, especially good for your computers at home, is described here: https://fosterinstitute.com/blog/powerful-windows-firewall/

You might find it fascinating how, when I’m performing audits, I discover that many organizations have the technology for client-side firewalls and the firewalls are turned off. Maybe your IT professional(s) are just too busy to enable and configure the firewall? If so, that is a priority management problem.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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A powerful Windows built-in firewall

Mike Foster — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:00:57 +0000

While the firewall included with Windows XP was the brunt of many jokes, there is no joking about the power of the Windows 7 firewall! First of all, the firewall knows the difference between your office, home, and hot spot networks and can protect your computer accordingly.

In fact, the firewall is now referred to as the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Your IT professionals have a great deal of control over what is, and is not, allowed into your computers. Furthermore, there is a great deal of control over what information is allowed out of a machine. These advanced settings can make the difference between your network being infected or not.

In case you wonder, your IT professionals can keep those users from modifying the firewall settings on their own. And, because of robust support for something IT professionals call GPOs, your IT professionals can configure all or even a subset of the computers in your organization rapidly and with just a moment’s notice.

As an executive, unless you already have a robust firewall in place, the “already included with Windows 7” firewall is worth serious consideration.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Build a better firewall?

Mike Foster — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:00:30 +0000

Your IT professionals can protect you even more than they are now.

In the experience of auditing, most organizations know to use a DMZ that functions as a buffer zone between your internal network and the public Internet.

Sometimes it is even better to have a buffer zone in-between your local network and the DMZ. In other words, for traffic to get into your network, the traffic will have to get past at least three firewalls.

Since this blog post is directed towards an executive level audience, I’ll invite IT professionals to contact me for more details. And, for any of you who are interested, click here to download a diagram that provides both a clear visual and also the details you will find helpful.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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Firewalls offer less protection than you think

Mike Foster — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:00:36 +0000

Most executives, and sometimes IT professionals, feel that firewalls are the most important component for protecting organizations against outside attacks, but firewalls can be ineffective.

It seems like every new way to prevent a security breach results in a new way to thwart that security.

Firewalls are still important—be sure to keep them!

Most of you know that https:// sites use encryption to protect your information from snoopers during transmission.

What will happen when one or more of your users receive an “urgent” e-mail that does its best to compel them to click on an https:// link inside the e-mail? Maybe most of your users would recognize the danger; however it only takes one user to click.

When the user clicks on the link, malicious code could be installed on the user’s machine and, consequently, possibly reach your servers and entire network.

Normal perimeter defenses, such as basic firewalls, cannot read the encrypted traffic to watch for that malicious code.

You could configure a firewall to disallow all https:// encrypted traffic; however, no one in your organization could easily access https:// web sites, such as banking sites.

Some people would argue that the best firewalls these days are firewalls that can examine even encrypted data—sometimes known as proxy or application firewalls or Layer 7 (no, that is not a brand name) firewalls.

Keep your firewalls, but don’t count on them too much.

Please post your comments on this blog.

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