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Another risk is that these features will exact a performance penalty, reducing the firewall’s ability to focus on traffic filtering. So the message is this: Try to use your firewall to the minimum extent possible so it can focus on its core function, and you can better manage the security risk of the other functions by shifting them to other systems to handle the load. Firewall systems have certainly evolved over the years. Originally, firewalls were handbuilt systems with two network interfaces that forwarded traffic between them.

A user can connect to a WiMax access point several miles away, and open a backdoor via their PC to your “secure” network. A multitude of tools, both freeware and commercial off-the-shelf, are available to perform security testing. org/nmap/) Nmap is one of the most commonly used network and port scanning tools, used by hackers and security professionals alike. It also has the ability to “fingerprint” the operating system of the target host by analyzing the responses to different types of probes.

Availability also means that critical data should be protected from erasure—for example, preventing the wipeout of data on your company’s external Web site. To fully scope the role of information security, however, we also need to add a few more areas of concern to the list. Some security practitioners include the following within the three areas described, but by getting more granular, we can get a better sense of the challenges that must be addressed: ■ Authentication Ensuring that users are, in fact, who they say they are.