Firewall Fundamentals at Dominant Systems Book Store

The essential guide to understanding and using firewalls to protect personal computers and your network

An easy-to-read introduction to the most commonly deployed network security device
Understand the threats firewalls are designed to protect against
Learn basic firewall architectures, practical deployment scenarios, and common management and troubleshooting tasks
Includes configuration, deployment, and management checklists

Increasing reliance on the Internet in both work and home environments has radically increased the vulnerability of computing systems to attack from a wide variety of threats. Firewall technology continues to be the most prevalent form of protection against existing and new threats to computers and networks. A full understanding of what firewalls can do, how they can be deployed to maximum effect, and the differences among firewall types can make the difference between continued network integrity and complete network or computer failure. Firewall Fundamentals introduces readers to firewall concepts and explores various commercial and open source firewall implementations--including Cisco, Linksys, and Linux--allowing network administrators and small office/home office computer users to effectively choose and configure their devices. Firewall Fundamentals is written in clear and easy-to-understand language and helps novice users understand what firewalls are and how and where they are used. It introduces various types of firewalls, first conceptually and then by explaining how different firewall implementations actually work. It also provides numerous implementation examples, demonstrating the use of firewalls in both personal and business-related scenarios, and explains how a firewall should be installed and configured. Additionally, generic firewall troubleshooting methodologies and common management tasks are clearly defined and explained.

Customer Reviews & Comments
So what is a firewall? Noonan and Dubrawsky explain, at a sophisticated level far deeper than a "Dummies" book. Starting with the basics. Namely, why you should have one. As a major defense against a bevy of malware attacks on your network. These include worms, Trojans, Denial of Service and the always popular and pernicious social engineering. Given this motivation, the book classifies the different types of firewalls available. There are various ways to do this. One is simply to divvy up all firewalls into software, appliance or integrated classes. Another method, which might be more meaningful, focuses on the technology used by a firewall. Regardless of whether it's provided by hardware or software. The technology classification gives you packet filtering, NAT, circuit level, proxies, stateful and others. To understand the distinctions, the book also gives a quick education about TCP/IP. One noteworthy take home message provided by the book is that a NAT firewall is a pretty simple functionality. It really doesn't give that much protection, despite what you might read elsewhere on the Web. The details given in the book should disabuse you on relying on a NAT as your firewall. I looked and looked for a Cisco bias in the book. It comes from ciscopress.com, after all. But the authors furnish a pretty objective analysis. Yes, at various points, they talk about what Cisco provides in this arena. But Cisco is a major player, and needs to be discussed. It's a disservice to the reader to omit it. Plus, other vendors also get fair play, like Trend Micro or Microsoft.

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