Software and Hardware Firewalls: Differences, Examples, and Purpose

This report provides a comparative analysis of software and hardware firewalls. It begins by defining both types, with software firewalls being installed on individual machines for protection against unauthorized access, while hardware firewalls are built into routers or standalone devices to secure multiple machines. The report offers examples of both, including Windows Firewall, ZoneAlarm, Fortinet, and Cisco firewalls. It then details the purpose of firewalls, emphasizing their role in securing computers against electronic threats and filtering network traffic. The main difference between the two is that software firewalls protect a single machine and are less expensive, while hardware firewalls protect the whole network and are more expensive. Furthermore, software firewalls are configured on individual servers, whereas hardware firewalls are implemented at the router level. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of firewalls in modern network security, acting as gatekeepers between a computer and the outside world and blocking potentially harmful requests.

Running head: FIREWALLS
Software and Hardware Firewalls
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Software and Hardware Firewalls:.............................................................................................2
Examples:...................................................................................................................................2
Purpose:......................................................................................................................................3
Difference:..................................................................................................................................4

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Software and Hardware Firewalls:
The software firewall is also known as the personal firewall. A software firewall is a software
that is installed in the machine for the protection from the threats and access that are
unauthorized. The protection is provided by the software and it is totally the contrast of the
hardware firewall (Wood et al., 2015).
The hardware firewall is totally opposite of the software firewall. The hardware firewall is
built into the routers or in some standalone devices. These hardware firewalls are capable of
provide security for the more than one or more machines (Waziri & Shropshire 2015).
Examples:
There are many software firewalls that are I the market right now. The examples of the
software are given below:
 Windows Firewall
 ZoneAlarm
 Outpost Firewall Pro
 Little Snitch
 Avast Antivirus
There are so many hardware firewalls in the market as well. The list of the top firewalls
are given below:
 Fortinet Connected UTM...
 NETGEAR ProSecure UTM10.
 Cisco SA 500.
 McAfee Next Generation.
 Palo Alto PA-200.
 Dell SonicWALL TZ 105.
 WatchGuard Firebox T10.

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Purpose:
A firewall has a vital importance in the security of the computers. The main objective of the
firewall is to secure the computer against the electronic threats. The firewall act as the
intermediate gatekeeper between the computer server and the outside world servers
(Arramreddy & Gadiraju 2017). The firewalls not only provide defence against the cyber
threats but the firewalls are also capable of providing information about the problem that are
associated with the network of the computer. The firewalls filters all the request in the
network and checks that the request is clean or vulnerable for the network. The primary
purpose of the firewall is filtering of the network packets. The firewall allows the network
traffic from the web browsers while it rejects most of the requests. The firewall can be used
to block any particular website to prevent from the employees of a company.

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Difference:
Software Firewall Hardware Firewall
 The software firewalls protects only
a single machine.
 The software firewalls are less
expensive.
 The configuration of the software
firewalls are easy.
 Installed on the individual servers.
 The software firewall intercept all
the connection request and then
allow the valid request in the server
or in the computers.
 The hardware firewalls protects the
whole network
 The hardware firewalls are
implemented on a routers level.
 The hardware firewalls are more
expensive.
 The configuration of hardware
firewalls is hard.
 Installed on the routers that is sited
between the internet and the
computer.
The firewalls can be founded between the computer and the internet. In the network
the firewall blocks the request that can be affect or harm the computer network. The firewall
can work anywhere in the network that is related to the internet like the firewall can work in a
website or it can work in the local computer as well (Ellis 2014). The work of the firewall can
be determined by the user that at which extent the firewall can perform their work.

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References:
Arramreddy, S., & Gadiraju, S. (2017). U.S. Patent Application No. 14/921,873.
Ellis III, F. E. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,677,026. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
Waziri, I., & Shropshire, J. (2015, April). A heuristic migration logic between firewalls in a
federated cloud network. In SoutheastCon 2015 (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Wood, T., Ramakrishnan, K. K., Hwang, J., Liu, G., & Zhang, W. (2015). Toward a
software-based network: integrating software defined networking and network
function virtualization. IEEE Network, 29(3), 36-41.