Whats in a Firewall?
We continue to hear reports of companies, government agencies, and systems being hacked into by the “Bad Boys” of the Internet. Most recently it was confirmed that the US Pentagon systems were hacked into and thousands of files were copied from the systems that were hacked. When I heard this report I thought “How in the world does an organization like the Pentagon with all of the resources they have get penetrated???” If organizations like the Pentagon have lowered defenses, how do we, the average system owner with a whole lot less resources protect ourselves?
As I thought about it I realized that there are just too many possible “holes” that can allow the “Bad Boys” in. Once an attacker penetrates the perimeter the internal systems are unprotected. Worms have penetrated many corporate networks through email systems, careless users, and the use of USB devices. Once they are in they spread quickly.
Today’s worms and viruses initiate a large percentage of the attacks that take place. Today’s hackers have become more and more sophisticated and continue to develop new methods to hack and avoid detection. You think you have the door closed and voila, you turn around and there they are. Once in, they start looking for other victims inside the network that they can infect. They can also use the infected computer to attack other computers both inside and outside your network. Besides wasting your resources (Bandwidth and other resources) they can get you or your company in a world of legal trouble. If your “network” is being used to perform a Denial of Service (DOS)attack or network reconnaissance scan against another companies network you have a responsibility to get the attack stopped immediately. Failure to do so can have devastating consequences…..