Firewalls

A Firewall is a type of security system that helps protect your computer or network from unauthorized access. It acts like a barrier between your computer or network and the outside world, allowing only certain types of traffic to pass through. Firewalls can be either hardware or software based. For example, if someone wanted to access your computer from the internet, a firewall would be used to block the connection. In addition, it would also be used to filter out any malicious traffic from entering your computer or network. This is especially important if you are using a public Wi-Fi network, as you don’t know who else is using it. Firewalls can be very effective in protecting your computer or network from cyber threats. According to a 2017 report from the US Department of Homeland Security, the use of firewalls can block up to 80 percent of cyber attacks. An analogy for a firewall would be a fence around a house. Just like a fence keeps out unwanted visitors, a firewall keeps out unwanted traffic. A fun fact about firewalls is that they were originally referred to as “packet filters”. This was because they filtered out packets of data that were not allowed to pass through the firewall.