Networking Fundamentals

Firewalls

Firewalls are arguably one of the best methods of protecting your computer, yet very few people understand them. I would suggest the reason for this is because Microsoft does a pretty good job of implementing firewalls within their Windows operating systems (OSes). Windows Firewall has been part of the OS since its introduction in Windows XP Service Pack 2, and over time, its functionality has increased.

As a basic description, a firewall is designed to either allow or deny network traffic based upon a set of defined criteria. These criteria could be a predefined set of default rules or could be user-created, or even a combination of the two. These rules are often referred to as access control entries (ACEs), and a group of them ...