However, read more about the rest if you want to better understand how a firewall works and how they’ve evolved over the years. Here’s a quick summary: unless you’re running your own server stack (providing a website with your own internet), the type of firewall you mainly need to worry about are personal firewalls, software firewalls, and web application firewalls. If you’re wondering which you should be looking for, we’ll break down all the major types of firewalls. They all work differently and are better at blocking certain kinds of traffic. Some are better for single computers, while others are made for network-wide filtering. There are many different types of firewalls, each designed for a different situation. DDoS attacks: Firewalls (especially web application firewalls) can attempt to detect the influx of fake traffic that occurs during a DDoS attack.Brute force attacks: Attempts by hackers to try hundreds of username and password combinations to discover your admin (or other users’) login credentials.Malware may steal personal information, spread itself to other users, or otherwise damage your computer. Malware: Attackers who manage to infiltrate can send malware to infect you or your server.Intrusions: Firewalls prevent unauthorized users from accessing your computer or server remotely and doing whatever they want.Not convinced? Here’s what a firewall can protect you or your website against: Without a firewall, your website and even your personal devices are vulnerable to DDoS attacks, an attack vector that sends thousands or millions of fake packets to overload your server and brings your website or internet down. In the case of a web server, if a hacker manages to get through, they could deface your website, embed malware that infects your visitors, change your WordPress admin login credentials, or take down your site entirely. This could give hackers the ability to take over your computer, install whatever they want, monitor as you enter sensitive info like bank credentials, or even look through your webcam/camera, and listen through your microphone. Not just your computer, but your web server, phone, IoT devices, or anything you can think of that has the ability to use the internet.Īn unprotected device is easy pickings for intrusions and infections. You might be wondering: when is a firewall necessary? Do I really need one?Ī firewall is required for any machine that connects to the internet. ImportantĪll sites hosted on Kinsta are automatically protected by our free Cloudflare integration, which includes a secure firewall and DDoS protection. Nowadays they’ve evolved into complex pieces of programming that are much better at keeping out-attempted intrusions and are an essential piece of software for all devices. When they were first developed, firewalls were very simple packet analyzers that allowed or blocked incoming traffic based on a minimal set of predefined rules. It’s a big filtration system for your computer or server. Should it detect something suspicious, it will instantly block it from reaching its destination. Connecting to a web serverįirewalls simply monitor incoming and outgoing traffic on a device, scanning for any signs of malicious activity. It’s the intermediary between you and any other devices trying to connect to you or, in a web server’s case, between it and the hundreds or thousands of connections it makes with others every day. Once that connection is established, it’s much easier to infect the other party with malware or launch a DDoS attack. It’s not safe to connect so directly to another device without any kind of protection in between. Whenever you visit a website, you’re basically connecting to another computer: the web server. But because a server is just a specialized kind of computer, it’s susceptible to the same kind of attacks your own PC is. What Is a Firewall? What Does a Firewall Do?
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