Restricting Ports Using a Hardware Firewall

Restricting Ports Using a Hardware Firewall
Although software firewalls and filters offer some protection against intrusion, they have a major weakness: They're trying to protect the computer they're running on. A virus or a Trojan horse program that managed to run on a system could easily disable a software firewall, leaving it open to further attacks. A hardware firewall reduces the risk from attacks by filtering Internet packets before they arrive at the computers on the local network. Although a hardware firewall does use software, it is special-purpose software running only the most basic functions required to process and filter network packets. That makes it difficult for such common attackers as Trojan horses and virus-infected e-mail messages to compromise a hardware firewall.

For more information about hardware firewalls, see Using a Hardware Firewall Appliance.