Hardware vs. Software Firewalls

[StephanieRice]

Hello friends,

I have set an firewall security for my computer system,but i don't know whether it falls under hardware firewall or in the software firewall, so if anyone here will suggest me what is the difference between two will be helpful for me understand it in the better sense.


Thanks in Advance

[Janhavi4U]

A firewall is a protective system that lies, in essence, between your computer network and the Internet. When used correctly, a firewall prevents unauthorized use and access to your network. The job of a firewall is to carefully analyze data entering and exiting the network based on your configuration. It ignores information that comes from an unsecured, unknown or suspicious locations.

Hardware Firewalls
Hardware firewalls can be purchased as a stand-alone product but more recently hardware firewalls are typically found in broadband routers, and should be considered an important part of your system and network set-up, especially for anyone on a broadband connection. Hardware firewalls can be effective with little or no configuration, and they can protect every machine on a local network. Most hardware firewalls will have a minimum of four network ports to connect other computers, but for larger networks, business networking firewall solutions are available.

Software Firewalls
For individual home users, the most popular firewall choice is a software firewall. Software firewalls are installed on your computer (like any software) and you can customize it; allowing you some control over its function and protection features. A software firewall will protect your computer from outside attempts to control or gain access your computer, and, depending on your choice of software firewall, it could also provide protection against the most common Trojan programs or e-mail worms.

[Kerwin]

Hardware firewalls provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside to the internal network. Hardware firewalls can protect computers on a local area network and they can be implemented without much configuration difficulty.

Software firewalls are installed on individual computers and they need sufficient configuration to be effective. Software firewalls contain a set of related programs, usually located at a network gateway server, that protect the resources of a private network from users on other networks or from internal users. Software firewalls allow application screening to verify the interaction between the requesting client and the requested resource.

There are three main types of firewall architecture: Stateful Inspection, Proxy based, and Packet Filtering.

[yuppicide]

A hardware firewall in a typical broadband router employs a technique called packet filtering, which examines the header of a packet to determine its source and destination addresses. This information is compared to a set of predefined and/or user-created rules that determine whether the packet is to be forwarded or dropped. A more advanced technique called Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), looks at additional characteristics such as a packet's actual origin (i.e. did it come from the Internet or from the local network) and whether incoming traffic is a response to existing outgoing connections, like a request for a Web page.


One obvious downside to software firewalls is that they can only protect the machine they're installed on, so if you have multiple computers (which many small offices do), you need to buy, install, and configure a software firewall separately on each machine. This can get expensive and can be difficult to manage if you have a lot of computers.

But the fact of the matter is that software firewalls generally offer the best measure of protection against certain types of situations like Trojan programs or e-mail worms. Speaking of which, a firewall isn't the only protection method available to you. Whether you end up using a software firewall or a hardware firewall, you should always supplement it with anti-virus software.