CompTIA Network+® Study Guide

15.1. Using Hardware and Software Security Devices

This heading may be a little misleading because it makes it sound like I'm going to talk about the differences between hardware and software security devices. But I'm not, because even though many firewalls and routers that contain proxy and/or firewall services brand themselves as hardware or software solutions, the fact is, most of these devices are really a combination of the two. For instance, there's software embedded within a hardware ROM chip to make the software harder to attack, but it still actually functions as software. So instead of focusing on the type of device, it makes a lot more sense to delve into exactly what it is that a device does and how it does it.

In medium to large ...