Risk, Crisis and Security Management: Firewall Technical Report

This report delves into the world of firewalls, beginning with a fundamental definition and exploring their role as a network security system that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic. The research methodology involves in-depth exploration of firewall types and functionalities, including hardware and software firewalls, with an emphasis on their advantages and disadvantages. The report discusses hardware firewalls as barriers between networks and the internet, and also looks at different types of firewalls such as packet filtering and stateful inspection firewalls. Furthermore, it highlights the benefits such as monitoring traffic and protection against malware, while also addressing drawbacks like user restrictions. The report also includes an experiment demonstrating how to block a program using a Windows firewall and concludes with the author's insights and suggestions for improvement. The report aims to show the understanding of firewalls, their contents, analysis, and facts, along with how to mitigate potential security risks.

Risk, Crisis and Security
Management

Table of content
Abstract 3
Introduction 3
Research methodology……………………………………………………………………3
What is Firewall 3
Benefits and Drawbacks of Firewall …….4 - 5
Hardware Firewall and how they work 6
Other types of Firewalls 6
Software Firewall 7
Conclusion 8
References 9
Abstract

In this report, I will be explaining about Firewall and will be researching contents of
Firewall and presenting and experimenting methods and results of Firewall. In this
report I have carried out an experiment where I have shown how to block a program
in windows firewall. The overall purpose of the study is to show my understanding of
Firewall and to research about its contents, show analysis and give a discussion and
facts about Firewall. Also, I have given a conclusion of what I have learned in this
module and what I can do to further improve on my work.
Introduction
The objective of this report is to research about a chosen topic of your choice which I
have chosen Firewall. This topic will be treated as a technical report where I will
present methods, theories, facts, experiment methods, results, analysis, and
arguments about Firewall.
Research methodology
I will be researching about my chosen topic which is Firewall. I will approach this
report by gaining more knowledge about Firewall by researching about Firewall,
different types of Firewalls there are and showing how to block a program using
Firewall by watching videos on the internet. I will complete this report by showing
and explaining what Firewall is and will be using facts, arguments and analysis to
show the user why Firewall is useful to have.
What is a Firewall?
A firewall is a program and hardware device which is a network security system that
observes and monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic. It can filter data
packets that comes through the internet into your personal devices and networks. A
firewall acts like a barrier between a trusted network and untrusted network which is
the internet. A firewall is mainly set up to allow a one-way access to computer users
meaning users can go onto the internet and go on websites and pages, but the
firewall will monitor everything with a set of rules.
Benefits and drawbacks of firewall

A benefit of having a firewall is it can monitor traffic. One of the roles of firewall is it
will constantly monitor traffic passing through and out of your network. When
information goes through a network it is broken down into pieces of tiny packets. A
firewall will examine every piece of those tiny packets for any potential threats. If a
firewall finds any threat to those packets it will block them and will not let them pass
through the network. There are many ways a firewall can monitor traffic and these
methods are packet filtering, proxy service and stateful inspection. Packet filtering
are small quantity of data, when a firewall uses packet filtering the packets that want
to enter a network will be put into group of filters. Proxy service is another way to
monitor traffic as this firewall is secure, but they do have their own disadvantages
such as they work more slower than other types of firewalls.
Another benefit of having a firewall is they can protect computer users from
malwares and trojans which are dangerous to a computer user. A trojan is a
malicious software that can take control of your computer without you knowing. This
type of malicious software can damage, steal, and harm your personal data and
network. A trojan will act like an application to you and will want you know to install
onto your device so they can execute malware on your device, once they are
installed, they can steal your data and more. A firewall will be useful in this type of
incident because it will block the trojan before they can damage your computer and
system.
A drawback of having a firewall is user restriction as this can be a problem for
companies and organisations. Firewalls have certain restriction that can prevent
employees from accessing certain sites and doing operations. These restrictions can
affect the productivity and even prompt employees and users to use backdoor
exploits. These backdoor exploits are dangerous and can be a threat to your device
and network as this can limit the firewall ability to secure your network and device.
As data is transmitted and passed through these back doors they will not be filtered
or examined by the firewall and can end up affecting your network and the overall
performance of your computer device.
Moreover, a drawback of having a firewall is it is powerless against other types of
malware and viruses. Even though firewall can prevent trojans from getting into your
computer they are not effective against other types of viruses. These varieties of
viruses can enter your computer and network undetected without the firewall
knowing. If a computer user wants to prevent this from happening, then they would
need to install an antimalware software which can be costly. This is the only way you
can remove these types of malwares by having an antimalware tool.
Hardware firewall and how they work

A hardware firewall can be useful to computer users as they can act as a brick wall
for your computer, network, and server. This type of hardware will sit between your
network and internet and will be analysing incoming traffic coming in and out of your
network and will be minimising threats when they come across your device. This
hardware will act like a barricade that will filter the traffic going into a computer
device and sits between an external network and server which will offer solutions
such as an antivirus resolution and a barrier against intrusions. Hardware firewall
work depending on the setup of your network and how it is configured.
Other types of firewalls
There are many types of hardware firewall for example, packet filtering firewall,
stateful inspection firewall, next generation firewall and many more.
Packet filtering firewall can examine the data packets entering your network. When
these types of data packets are travelling through your network, they will come with
information which will tell the firewall the source and location of the data packets.
This will then tell the packet filtering firewall whether if the data packet will be a
danger to the network system or not. It will then run across information which has a
list of permissions and if the data packets do not pass through the permission
specification, then it will be denied access to the network and if the data packets
pass through the permission, then it will be granted access to enter the network.
Software firewall
Software firewalls are installed on individual computers. This type of software can
provide internal protection to a network and can easily connect programs on a
computer. This will allow data to one programme and blocking another and protects
single devices. It can also filter outgoing data and will always scan for threats coming
in and out of your network. Software firewall control particular functions such as
blocking access to a website or printer that are installed on the network. Software
firewall can protect other computers that are linked to the same network for example,
if the firewall manages to prevent a threat infecting a computer, then they can ensure
that other computers that are connected to the same network not to be infected with
the same threat.
Software firewall can work well as they can block malicious viruses that has already
passed through your network and router. When a software is trying to gain access to
the internet, the firewall can verify if its legit or malicious as it will constantly update
their databases. With this type of information, software firewall can block or allow a
program capability to transmit and receive data through the internet. Also, software
firewall can prevent any risky actions based on their blacklisted IP address which is
known as malware definitions and suspicious applications requests. This can be
beneficial to computer users because they can block certain IP addresses from
connecting to your server.
Conclusion

In conclusion, I have learned a lot about firewall and what types of firewalls there
are. I have also learned about the security risk in firewall and understood the issue
with information of security and the risk behind them. I can identify the security risk
and how to control the risk in a particular context. The struggles I faced with this
coursework was to show my analysis and experiment using window firewall as I did
not know how to do this. I have overcome this problem by watching videos on how to
block a program and software which I have learned how to do. I have learned in the
coursework that Firewall is not all secure and safe as there are disadvantages using
Firewall. I have also learned how to minimise threats using Firewall and know the
risk behind the security in Firewall as personal information can be leaked to potential
threats. What I can do to improve further is go into more depth about Firewall and
show more analysis and methods of Firewall.
References

Anandsoft.com. (2019). Advantages and disadvantages of hardware
firewalls. [online] Available at: https://www.anandsoft.com/networking/advantages-of-
hardware-firewalls.html. [Accessed 3 Nov. 2021]
Ferguson, J. (2020). Hardware vs. Software Firewalls: A Guide for SMBs. [online]
TrustRadius Blog. Available at: https://www.trustradius.com/buyer-blog/hardware-vs-
software-firewalls. [Accessed 11 Nov. 2021]
Fortinet. (n.d.). Hardware Firewalls: Better Than Software? [online] Available at:
https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/hardware-firewalls-better-than-
software. [Accessed 11 Nov. 2021]
Larsen DeCario,A. G.Ferrell, R The 5 different types of firewalls (2019). The 5
different types of firewalls. [online] SearchSecurity. Available at:
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/feature/The-five-different-types-of-firewalls.
[Accessed 3 Dec. 2021]
Check Point Software. (n.d.). What is a Firewall. [online] Available
at: https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/network-security/what-is-firewall/.
[Accessed 3 Dec. 2021].
Forcepoint (2019). What is a Firewall? [online] Forcepoint. Available
at: https://www.forcepoint.com/cyber-edu/firewall. [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].
Fortinet (n.d.). Hardware Firewalls: Better Than Software? [online] Fortinet. Available
at: https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/hardware-firewalls-better-than-
software. Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].
Johansen, A.G. (2021). What is a firewall? Firewalls explained and why you need
one. [online] Norton. Available at: https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-
threats-what-is-firewall.html [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Windows 11: Block a Program in Firewall. [online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kheDH6BUXWM [Accessed 5 Dec.
2021].