Positioning Firewall between Internal and External Domains - Essay Example

A firewall may take the form of hardware or software components or a combination of both. Anita (2011, p.294) notes that a firewall plays a vital role in an organization since it bars computers in one network domain from communicating directly with other network domains. He also points out that all communication takes place via the firewall, which monitors all the incoming data before allowing it to go to the local network.
As in the case of ABC Company, there are several reasons why the firewall was placed between the internal and external domains. Firstly, the company reports that most of its employees are not privy to all the information. As such, a firewall is positioned between the internal and external domains so that their access and trust can carefully be predicted and monitored. The reason is, if their home machines which live outside of the firewall are interfered with, then the sensitive equipment found inside could also be at high risk of being compromised. Therefore, a firewall is put at the boundary to prevent security threats from external users.
Secondly, the firewall is positioned in between the internal and external domains to provide security by examining all the incoming data packets from the general public to ensure that they are only allowed to enter the local network after meeting the security conditions. This prevents putting the internal domain at risk of sabotage among others. Anita (2010, p.294) notes that the firewall provides user authentication by approving the password and username, which ensures that only authorized users are allowed access to the internal domain.
The other important reason why the firewall was placed between the internal and external domains is to hide the contents and structure of the internal domain from external users. The company notes that it became necessary to hide some of the contents and structures found in the internal domain from unscrupulous users that may interfere with its contents and structure. Doing this was only possible by positioning the firewall at the boundary to ensure that unscrupulous external users are denied access to the internal domain unless otherwise authorized by the management. Anita (2010, p. 294) points out that Network Address Translation (NAT) obscures the internal network address and replaces all the IP addresses of the local network with one or more public IP addresses.
Finally, ABC Company reports that transitive trust has been an issue in the organization for a very long period. Read More