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Security |
To contact a product advisor:
 0808 202 7749
 thuscorporatesales@thus.net
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| Overview | Benefits | Considerations | Product Range |
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| Overview |
| We provide a range of firewall solutions to help protect your network, data and ultimately, your business. Select the one best suited to the size, security policy and use of your company.
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| Benefits |
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Helps to protect your investment in IT and to avoid malicious attack when connected to the internet. |
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Protects your network from outside attack. |
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Connects branch offices using a cost-effective but secure internet-based virtual private network (VPN), enabling employees in different offices to work together more effectively. |
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Enables businesses to offer flexible remote working options to employees through the deployment of mobile user VPNs. |
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Controls how a company’s internet connectivity is used, improving employee productivity and limiting the risk of worms entering your network. |
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Considerations |
We sell a variety of firewall products with varying features. Below are some issues to consider before deciding on the correct firewall for your business. Our sales advisors are also available to help.
Supported users
Businesses will need to ensure that the firewall can support all the users in their office and,
if applicable, remote offices and workers.
Speeds and feeds
Consider firewall and VPN throughput figures. You don't want the firewall to slow down your LAN or VPN,
so if your business is going to experience fairly heavy traffic, make sure the model you choose can handle
the load. The number of network interfaces can also be important if your business has a complex network.
VPN tunnels supported
Some firewalls have a limit to the number of branch office or mobile user connections (VPN tunnels)
they can support. Most vendors will also charge extra for mobile user licences. Make sure your current
and future requirements can be met.
Anti-virus capability
Some firewalls offer anti-virus protection. This gives an additional level of security to the anti-virus
software users have installed on their PCs. Firewalls with this feature scan all network traffic - including
emails and web browsing to stop viruses entering the local network. This is held on a centrally managed
device, so there will be no risk of the virus scanning being turned off or not updated, as can often happen
when installed only on users' PCs.
Deep inspection (application layer filtering)
Most firewalls offer stateful inspection, which looks at the headers of packets passing through the
firewall during any session. Deep inspection actually opens the packets and looks at the application.
This provides protection against more sophisticated attacks, often called ‘worms’, which
are aimed at internet-facing applications such as NetBIOS, Microsoft Windows, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and
Instant Messaging (IM).
Web filtering
This feature can prevent computers on your network accessing unsuitable websites. This keeps your
internet connectivity free for business use and stops employees wasting time at work! The administrators
can control the kind of sites employees can access.
DMZ
Allows users to create a 'de-militarised zone', which is a portion of a network that is exposed to the
internet but doesn't allow traffic through to the user's private network. DMZ is typically used to put
on internet-facing resources such as web servers.
Traffic shaping / quality of service ( QoS )
This feature allows the user to control what kind of network traffic gets priority. For example, a
user could make sure the IPSEC VPN tunnels to branch offices always had 200Kbits/sec of bandwidth –
ensuring something such as excessive web browsing would not affect the VPN’s performance.
ADSL router
Some firewalls have an integrated ADSL router, eliminating the need for a separate ADSL router, which can save you money.
VLAN support
This is a way of ring-fencing multiple virtual zones, or security zones, on a single interface. For example,
if a company wants to give separate access to an external partner, they can sub-divide the external interface
into two security zones: one for employees and one for partners. This proves very helpful with capacity
management and scalability.
Intrusion protection
Higher-specification firewalls can include some basic elements of intrusion detection, looking at packets
on the network and preventing suspect ones from passing. This is typically a signature-based activity,
using a known list of malicious attacks as a reference for its inspection activities.
High availability
Larger customers might require a redundant solution, ie two firewalls working together in such a way that
if one fails, service continues through the remaining firewall and your network is still secure. Customers
with such requirements should choose a high-availability capable device. |
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Product Range |
THUS provides a wide range of established firewalls providers such as Watchguard, Juniper, Checkpoint and Cisco. Below you will find guidelines for the selection of one of our higher-specification firewalls.
To view the PDF documents, Adobe Acrobat Reader will need to be installed on your computer. To download a copy of this software, please click on the link below.
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