A direct connection from a company’s network to the Internet is like a hole in the wall. A firewall acts like a sentry between the network and the outside world allowing selective entry as per the rules. The article talks about the importance of firewall and the risks a company could face in its absence.

Networking is the best thing that happened to personal computers. Earlier, computers could only be used as stand-alone systems. Even at that time they were considered to be productive devices. But today, imagine not being connected to your local LAN or the Internet even for a day. People are becoming more and more dependent on the net for doing their daily work. They maintain their schedule, the address book and the documents etc., on the network for the convenience it provides for collaborating. Many companies depend on the Internet for their intra-company communication using what is called a Virtual Private Network. It is not surprising then that most companies want to get connected to the World Wide Web and communicate with other businesses and individuals across the world.

But everything is not as rosy as it may look. A connection to the Internet without any protection is like having the office door wide open for anyone to walk in and take anything. What we need is to get some real work done over the Internet and protect sensitive data at the same time.

It's also important to understand that it's not only the `always on' broadband Internet connections that are most vulnerable to outside attacks but also the ISDN and even the PSTN modem connections. A leased line or any other form of broadband connection does give the hacker the advantage of time. He knows that the connection is going to remain on and he can take his time to probe around and get in at leisure. The same luxury is not available on a dial up connection. Besides, the same machine may not get the same IP address the next time it goes online. This makes it difficult for a hacker to wait to get to the machine again at the next log in. Even so, there are tricks in the hacker's bag to prolong the dial up session giving him enough time to snoop around. One simple way may be to send a long e-mail message that may be required to be online long enough to enable the hacker to finish his job. Even otherwise, there are enough prowlers on the Web, just looking for an unguarded machine. They may not have anything specific in mind, but may just get control of the system resources and perhaps inflict damage.

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