Q1. What makes a firewall a good security investment? Accessing Internet, find 2 or 3 firewall vendors. Do they provide hardware, software or both?

Exercise 15: Protecting and Archiving Data

Answer:

What makes a firewall a good security investment?
Vijayrajesh (2007) points out that if a computer is connected to the internet and it is not protected in some way, then it is vulnerable to attacks by external hackers. These attacks can be quite harmful to the PC and can even result in losing valuable data saved on the hard drive. A firewall is what protects your system from outside attacks and intrusions. There are many hackers actively trying to access computers for devious purposes. This unwanted traffic and visitor can steal data and also use your computer for their criminal plans, such as sending out junk emails. A firewall regulates this traffic to different zones, such as the internet or internal networks of which each has a different level of trust.

Personally, I feel firewall is used to protect valuable data from hacker and malware. Without firewall, the valuable data may be stolen or destoryed. The main point is to protect data as data is the most valuable thing. In order to protect the most valuable thing, firewall is a good security investment.

The three firewall vendors are...
Juniper Networks - The products are Netscreen-5200 and Netscreen-5400. Juniper Networks provides mainly hardware firewall.
Watchguard - The products are Fireware XTM and Firebox X-Edge e-series. Watchguard mainly makes hardware firewall.
Checkpoint - The products are Power-1 11000 Series and Software Blades where Checkpoint offers BOTH hardware and software respectively.

Reference:

1. Vijayrajesh (2007). "Useful Software, Internet and Websites Pedia". Vijayrajesh, Retrieved from URL - http://vrtechlog.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-you-need-firewall-and-how-zonealarm.html