Interactive Systems knows that your personal information must be secured at all times, and utilizes the assistance of Firewalls to safeguard that information. Firewalls are an important part of internet security. They guard systems and networks from hacking attempts and other malicious or unauthorized activity. It is important that you understand some basics on how the internet works and how ‘packets’ move around from network to network. What is an IP Address
An IP Address is the way the computer gives itself an address. Just like sending a letter to someone else, the sender's and recipient's address must be included for the postal service (the internet) to deliver it successfully. When information is sent from one location to another on the internet, the information is converted into one or more "Packets."What is a Packet?
When data needs to be sent from one place to another, the information must be converted to a packet. A packet is a small piece of information, written in binary, that when translated at the receiving computer will be converted back to the original file. If the information is too large for one packet, several packets are made to equally split up the information into smaller pieces. These packets would then be combined and converted to it's original form at the recipient's computer.Example:
You want to send a message to your friend on their computer. Let's say their IP Address is "5.6.7.8" while your address is "1.2.3.4" You decide to type in "Hello Friend!" and click "Send."
As you can see in the diagram above, the message, after being converted into a packet, moves through the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) to determine who the message is being sent to. Then, the packet moves to the hardware to reach the internet. From here, the packet will reach the destination computer, be converted back into the original message and displayed on your friend's computer, all usually in less than a second!
How Firewalls Work
Data that is harmful to your computer or personal / financial information can be sent from hackers using the same method as explained above. To prevent this from happening, firewalls monitor and inspect these packets, also known as "Traffic", and reject any suspicious or unauthorized content from accessing the computer. This firewall technique is known as "Packet Filtering."The example below explains the typical operation of a firewall.
Additional Firewall Techniques
In addition to packet filtering, there are a few more ways a firewall can help protect your computer.- Application Gateway: Applies security mechanisms to specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet servers. This is very effective, but can cause performance degradation.
- Circuit-level Gateway: Applies security mechanisms when a connection is established. Once the connection has been made, packets can flow between the hosts without further checking.
- Proxy Server: Intercepts all messages entering and leaving the network. The proxy server effectively hides the true network addresses.
In practice, many firewalls use two or more of these techniques cooperatively.
A firewall is considered a first line of defense in protecting private information. For greater security, data can also be encrypted.
