Firewalls

Chapter 2

2.3 Firewall architectures 25

As with any safeguard, there are trade-offs between convenience

and security. Transparency is the visibility of the firewall to both inside

users and outsiders going through a firewall. A firewall is transparent

to users if they do not notice or stop at the firewall in order to access

a network. Firewalls are typically configured to be transparent to

internal network users (while going outside the firewall); on the other

hand, firewalls are configured to be non-transparent for outside

network users coming through the firewall. This generally provides

the highest level of security without placing an undue burden ...