Firewall for Small Business

[yjkim81]

I am an intern of a small investment consulting company.
Even though I am an IS major, I do not know very well
about network security.
This company has a very simple network using routers.
It does not have a server. They only share disk memories.
However, they want to employ firewall system whatever the
reason is. They do not want to pay a lot because
it is a very new starting company.
What firewall software do you recommend?

 

[Dinobrago]

Get a firewall appliance rather than firewall software. The security is much better. Plently of appliances from Symantec for a small business.

 

[sleipnir214]

Dinobrago:
I've heard the adage, "Get a firewall appliance -- it's more secure." a great many times in this forum.

What's your source on that?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[Dinobrago]

Source? As in, a whitepaper or something? You don't believe that firewall appliances are more secure?

For most people with a single PC, software firewalls are probably fine. But if you have data that you really want to protect or more than one machine, a firewall appliance is cheap and usually pretty easy. There are a whole range of options of firewalls combined with routers or wireless access points, etc. which are simple and inexpensive.

The main thing is that all the interactions with the outside world occur in the firewall appliance and not on your PC (as is the case in firewall software). You can have much more control over what goes in & out.

d-

 

[sleipnir214]

Ooooooh! I see.

You were comparing on-the-workstation firewall software to a separate firewall machine. I though you were comparing special-purpose firewall bricks to software firewalls on running on separate machines. Sorry about the confusion.

I agree -- a dedicated firewall is much more secure than on-the-workstation software.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[Robnhood]

When talking about network security, it is important to consider that the more layers that you add to the network the more secure your network will be.

I would probably look towards a hardware based firewall for security parameter, and something like symantecs internet security package corporate edition.

Craig

http://www.SecurelySpeaking.com

 

[flyboytim]

Smoothwall will run on a dedicated low-end PC. You can get it as a free download

http://www.smoothwall.org

or as a supported software package from £180 see

http://www.smoothwall.net

It offers DHCP, NAT, Proxy server, VPN, Intrusion detection, DMZ and firewall facilities, which may be remotely managed by a secure connection through a web browser.
The said benefits of a dedicated PC running a software firewall are that if the machine breaks, it takes only minutes to get a replacement PC running the firewall, whereas with a dedicated firewall appliance, your whole organisation may be down for mail, www, and other operations until you get another or get the manufacturer to fix it. Also the costs of upgrades and fixes are negligible with Softwall, being a GPL product.

 

[bobbyr]

Smoothwall is definately the way to go. Even the Corporate Server 3.0 is relatively cheap when compared to other firewalls (under $300 + the price of a PC) and is just as secure. It's an entire OS based on Linux, so it's not a Windows add-on. The best feature is that it's soo easy to setup even someone without years of firewall training can do it. You can get add-on modules that do web filtering to keep the users from viewing porn, etc. Here's a reseller in the USA that we get our stuff from:

http://www.futuremediagroup.com/store/

Bobby