Firewall Fundamentals

Depending on the report you want to accept, between 53 percent and 62 percent of Internet access in the United States is provided by broadband connections. Outside the United States, broadband access percentages can exceed 75 percent of all Internet access methods (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0511/).

Although broadband Internet access provides for increased download speeds and an explosion of Internet-based services and resources, it also introduces some unique problems to the small office/home office (SOHO) and home user markets. With dialup connections, the need to protect the resources accessing the Internet is not considered as critical, because systems are rarely left connected to the Internet all the time. Rather, users dial the computer into a service provider, do what they need on the Internet, and then hang up the modem, thus protecting the system with the most secure of "firewalls" by disconnecting it from the network.

With most broadband connections, however, the Internet connection is always on; and if the computer is left on, the computer remains always vulnerable to attack. Of course, this scenario is nothing new to the corporate arena, where always-on Internet connections are normal, but it presents a whole new issue of how to secure environments that are often out of the control of the IT department and frequently do not have people with the technical expertise to deal with security issues at the location where the resources are.

Many home users and hobbyists also want to take advantage of the increased speed and better functionality that a broadband connection provides, but want to ensure that their systems are as secure as possible. They have neither the technical expertise nor desire to secure their computers properly, but at the same time they want something that they can place between their computer and the network and be relatively certain that their computer will be protected.