You are Smarter than Your Firewall

IT Pro’s Will Like This Story

Many moons ago, there was brave warrior who had fought and won many battles against many evil empires.  One day, as he was traveling, he came upon a beautiful castle sitting on the most amazing property he had ever seen.  The castle had a 360 degree view of the most breathtaking countryside you could ever imagine and all of the surrounding land was green, bright and plentiful.  He thought “Surely, this will be a good place to rest for the night.”

He rang the bell, and was greeted by the King immediately and let inside without even having to give his name.  To his shock, within minutes, he was given a full tour of the castle and grounds… and even shown the King’s most valuable possessions and given permission to stay as long as he’d like.

After dining with the King and his family that night, he couldn’t help but finally ask “Pardon my curiosity Sir, but is this how you always treat strangers?”

The King replied “Yes, unless we know someone to be a proven criminal, we always treat every stranger like a member of the Royal Family until we find out they are not trustworthy.  At that point, we ask them to leave.”

The warrior said “Has that ever caused distress within your home?”

The King replied “Oh yes, every year or two, our entire castle is ransacked and we have to alert the guards to eradicate our home of a wretched thief whom we assumed was good and trustworthy.”

Just as he said that, an ear-piercing horn blew and the entire castle started running around in a state of chaos.  “The stranger from last week tried to steel your crown and is now running loose around on the grounds!” shouted a guard.   The king ran up to the brave warrior and pleaded “Please help us!”

Within a few hours, the brave warrior tracked down and captured the thief, single-handed and order was restored.   But the warrior was tired and sat confused, dumbfounded and a little frustrated…

“Why would they give a complete stranger full reign of the castle?  Couldn’t they figure out a little more about a stranger before giving them so much trust?  Isn’t there a middle-ground?”

You and the warrior have a lot in common

You and I both know that this castle’s security runs a lot like your firewall.

I know that you feel like this warrior every time another malicious stranger marches inside your network without a signature, through Port 53, Port 80 or Port 443, like nobody’s business… then screams of terror as havoc ensues, and you are summoned.  Frantically, you run around and eventually dispatch the threat but only after some damage has already been done.  You wonder, isn’t there a better way?

Why are most firewalls’ policy to let traffic (without a signature) in the network first, then try to whack them after they realize they are malicious and causing damage?

I’ve been told that malicious attacks are becoming more and more advanced and this is becoming a bigger problem for IT Departments, every year.

Sure, there is one Firewall that does not do this… we know the name… but it isn’t cheap and you have to really know your stuff to manage it in-house.

Here is some good news I heard last week

Last week, I learned one of our providers has a hosted firewall offering that does not allow anything in, without a “known as safe” signature.  If it doesn’t know it, it doesn’t get in.  Then, it immediately hands the stranger over to your IT Department to determine if it should be allowed in the future.  It does NOT let any unknown strangers into the castle, no matter what hole or port they try to enter through.

It does not cost a fortune and you don’t have to own it.  You pay for it monthly and the provider has product-matter-experts manage it for you.

Of course, I don’t personally manage a firewall for a mid-size company, so who am I to know how useful this weapon is to you IT Warriors?  My job is to find interesting stuff from the hundreds of service providers we sell, then throw it over the fence for you to sniff out.

So what are your thoughts?  Is that an interesting product?  What questions would you have?  Gimme’ a good question and I’ll go back to this provider and get you the answer.

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About the Author
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.