What are the Types of Firewalls?

There are six different types of firewalls:

Packet Filtering is a specific method for implementing a firewall to monitor network connectivity. Data packets are analyzed and compared against the configuration rules or “access-list.” It then determines what is allowed or denied access to your environment.

Stateful Inspection techniques allow the analysis of traffic flow patterns according to state, port, and protocol. It monitors activity on a connection from open to close. The firewall keeps track of known, trusted packets to determine authorized data from the website or app versus any data from unauthorized sources.

Stateful Multilayer Inspection Firewalls filter data packets at the network, transport, and application layers. SMLI firewalls examine entire data packets and compare them against trusted ones. They only allow them to pass if they pass each layer individually, ensuring all communication takes place with trusted sources.

Proxy-based firewalls take stateful inspection a step further, preventing direct network connections between Internet traffic and the server. The firewall acts as an intermediary between your server and end-user requests. Entire packets are examined and either blocked or allowed based on set rules.

Next-Generation Firewalls combine conventional firewall technology with additional functionality. Traditional firewalls only inspect packet headers. Like SMLI firewalls, Next-Gen firewalls analyze data within the packets to identify and stop malicious data more effectively.

NAT firewalls are similar to Proxy firewalls, acting as intermediaries between a group of computers and outside traffic. It acts as a private network, allowing multiple devices with independent network addresses to connect to the Internet with a single IP address. Devices behind this firewall remain hidden and unsolicited communication is blocked.

Firewalls play a crucial role while protecting enterprise networks. The administrator needs to know the right traffics is getting in and other irrelevant stuff remains blocked. By keeping this in mind, Telco ICT provides best practices to manage firewalls and configure it correctly.