Literature Review on Firewalls

Literature review on Firewalls
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Abstract
Security of the organizational data should be given the highest priority because it is one of the
most valuable assets. The security of the data is dependent on infrastructure design and
protection methodology implemented by the specific organization. Implementation of the
firewall in the organizational IT infrastructure serves to protect unauthorized access of data. A
firewall analyzes and filters all incoming and outgoing signals to ascertain whether they are
authentic. The nature of the firewall should be validated to make sure it can filter data packets as
well as check the content of the packet to prevent malware infection. Firewalls can either be
hardware or software depending on the decision made by organizational management. There are
different types of firewalls such as packet filtering, circuit-level gateway, stateful inspection, and
proxy firewalls. These firewall architecture can secure corporate network with all security
standards. The main goal of all these types of firewalls is to offer secure network and data
protection in an organization.

Table of Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................4
Hardware firewalls....................................................................................................................................5
Software firewalls......................................................................................................................................5
Different types of firewalls architecture..................................................................................................6
The best firewall architecture for an organization..................................................................................8
Importance of firewalls in network security............................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Information Technology (IT) infrastructure in an organization should be well structured
and protected to make sure the security of organizational data is guaranteed. It is important to
make sure all access to both the data and network are protected through the use of the firewalls.
The study remains very important because it highlights organizational network and data
protection strategies through use of firewalls. Implementation of firewalls in an organizational
network for network and data security can be done on either software or hardware form. In
today’s technological world, IT administrators should be on the same phase with technology to
avert data threats (Dandamudi & Eltaeib, 2015). Data threats can range from malicious software
attacks and hacking from within or outside the organization. To prevent and keep track of all
organizational activities, firewalls would serve as the best tool to capture audit trails and avoid
any unauthorized penetration into the network. In cases of a data breach from within or outside
the organization, IT administrators should be able to use data packets captured by firewalls to
trace the perpetrators. On the same note, through the use of firewalls, all signals should be
monitored, analyzed and verified before entering or leaving the organizational network
(Amalina, Alsaqour, Uddin, Alsaqour & Al-Hubaishi, 2013). Important to note is that with
intelligent firewalls, it is possible to monitor network bandwidth usage and assign a specific limit
to individuals. This article focus on the organizational network and data protection through the
use of firewalls. It would highlight network protection and network signal monitoring from
within the organization would be addressed. This cannot be achieved without having a distinctive
evaluation of IT administrators’ roles and tools to help in monitoring and troubleshooting the
network. The sources to be used would be scholarly articles not more than 10 years old from date
of publication.