Chapter e29

Firewalls

Dr. Errin W. Fulp,    Wake Forest University

1 Introduction

Providing a secure computing environment continues to be an important and challenging goal of any computer administrator. The difficulty is in part due to the increasing interconnectivity of computers via networks, which includes the Internet. Such interconnectivity brings great economies of scale in terms of resources, services, and knowledge, but it has also introduced new security risks. For example, interconnectivity gives illegitimate users much easier access to vital data and resources from almost anywhere in the world.

In a secure environment it is important to maintain the privacy, integrity, and availability of data and resources. Privacy refers to limiting ...

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