Website Security: Firewalls
Matt Wilson
Front End Developer
What is a firewall?
In the simplest terms, firewalls control what is and is not allowed to pass through a network based on a set of security rules. A firewall’s purpose is to provide a protective barrier between your inner network and outside sources, such as the Internet, to block malicious traffic. Malicious traffic can be any number of things, but in terms of website security, it is most likely to be viruses and hackers. Firewalls can be hardware, software, or sometimes both.
How will a firewall protect my website?
Roughly 37,000 websites are hacked every day. You should always do everything possible to ensure your website is safe for you and your visitors. At First Flight Agency, every website we develop and maintain on our servers is protected by a web application firewall (WAF). A WAF creates and administers a set of rules designed to protect your website, which includes:
- Blocking unwanted traffic from accessing your site
- Protecting against hacks, DDoS attacks, brute force attacks, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and zero-day exploits
- Virtual patching as soon as new threats are identified
Many of the things mentioned above won’t be familiar to most people in need of a website and are very hard to protect against individually. This is where a WAF shines! Website owners don’t have to be concerned with keeping up with the latest threats. WAF rules are continuously and automatically updated. There is no need for website owners or developers to constantly update site security every time a new threat arises.
Every single website is susceptible to attack. Hackers don’t tend to discriminate based on the size of the website, traffic to the site, size of the business, or value of the information that could be obtained. Most “hacks” aren’t even performed by an actual human sitting at their computer anymore. The majority are caused by bots that are programmed to do very specific things and released into the wilds of the internet. Sites that a WAF protects are much more likely to be safe from these bots than a site with no firewall. Website owners can relax knowing that their data and private information, as well as their clients’, is safe and well protected.
