As businesses increasingly shift to cloud-based and virtualized environments, traditional network security approaches — particularly firewalls — are falling short. Virtual firewalls, purpose-built for environments like public and private clouds or Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN), have emerged as a critical solution. Their ability to scale dynamically and integrate deeply with virtual infrastructure enables security…
Routers and firewalls are network security devices, sometimes grouped into business and home network packages or sold separately as dedicated hardware. Though the two are closely linked, routers and firewalls are very different devices. Router: Exchanges data between networks or gateways. Firewall: Blocks traffic from protected networks. Put simply, routers connect networks and move data…
A host-based firewall is installed and run on a single device, like a laptop, cell phone, or server. These firewalls are tailored to individual devices so they can monitor and control its specific traffic — as opposed to network-based firewalls, which protect an entire network of devices. Most consumer devices come with host-based firewalls pre-installed….
In networking, “state” refers to the context or session data of a current network connection. A stateful firewall, therefore, keeps track of the state of each connection passing through it, while a stateless firewall does not. Although they may sound less restrictive, stateless firewalls are incredibly useful for securing home and business networks. They use…
A stateful firewall keeps track of the state of network connections. A stateless firewall does not. Although the difference between a stateful vs stateless firewall is relatively simple, picking one may not be as straightforward. The state of a network connection refers to its status, whether a connection is being established, actively transferring data, or…
A stateful firewall is capable of tracking the state of active connections between devices on the network. It logs when devices are requesting data, sending data, or closing the connection. With this context, a stateful firewall knows whether incoming data is part of an established, legitimate session or if it’s an unsolicited request that needs…
