What is a hardware firewall?
A hardware firewall is a physical device responsible for filtering traffic coming to your website. This is achieved by placing a firewall between the uplink and the computer.
Security is a serious and delicate issue for every website/e-commerce store owner.
The number of security vulnerabilities is increasing at an alarming rate. As a result, the demand for products that protect your website from malicious attacks is increasing.
At serverguy, we give great importance to the security of websites & believe in taking steps beforehand to prevent malicious attacks.
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In this article, we will discuss one of these techniques for preventing security vulnerabilities:
Understanding the hardware firewall
A hardware firewall is a physical device responsible for filtering traffic coming to your website. This is achieved by placing a firewall between the uplink and the computer.
It makes use of powerful network components (hardware and software) and force all traffic through the connection through configurable rule sets that grant or deny access accordingly.
Features of hardware firewall are already set. They check the incoming and outgoing traffic of the computer and, according to some simple rules, allow or deny such traffic.
Some common examples of software firewalls that you may be familiar with are:-
- WindowsFirewall
- UFW
- IPTables
- FirewallD
The hardware firewall is the same unless it is outside the server.
Software vs Hardware Firewalls
The primary difference between hardware firewall and software firewall is that the hardware firewall runs on a physical device. A software firewall can be installed on a machine. Many operating systems including Windows and MacOS come with software firewalls installed on the machines. Software firewall does not need any dedicated hardware but can be installed on any machine.
How does the hardware firewall work?
The firewall is located outside the server and connects directly to the uplink. If this is a new configuration, the firewall will connect to the server.
If this is a new configuration for production servers, a maintenance window is scheduled to manage physical connections.
Once the connection to the server is established, all traffic to and from the server passes through the firewall. Traffic is forced to pass the verification. exceeds the type of traffic it receives, which is very important.
Here are five main advantages that hardware firewalls provide:
- Traffic Control: Ability to decide which traffic should and should not reach your server.
- Default Rules: A fully configurable list of default rules that can be applied to all traffic.
- Access to the Port: Thin controls to customize rules, such as allowing all traffic to your website, or ensuring that only you and your developers have access to ssh or rdp ports.
- Management equals flight control: Access a fully staffed network computer to configure, troubleshoot, or adjust controls at any time.
- Other Server Resources: You can even disable software firewalls from the server and rely entirely on hardware firewalls. Freeing up valuable processors and memory for continuous successful functions and services for your business needs.
Other Benefits of Hardware Firewalls
One of the major advantage of hardware firewalls is benefit is the ability to run VPN connections. This connection is also a fully managed product that enables security, access, and encryption of your already secure server.
What if I have more than one server?
ServerGuy offers hardware firewall devices that are sufficient to handle traffic from multiple servers. Upgrade to hardware to scale your security performance with your business.
We have a team of experts who can manage and maintain your servers 24×7 without any glitch.
This service includes configuration, monitoring, and maintenance in case of potential spam attacks. You can contact us or just leave a comment here. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
