Consulting Analysis Security VPN Internet Connectivity Wireless Implementation

Firewalls! Security! Safety!

Once upon a time in America, especially rural America, it was relatively safe to leave home and not lock your doors. However, times have certainly changed! There was also a time that most internet users were fairly safe from viruses, trojans, and hackers, That too, is no longer true. In fact, it is extremely unwise to leave home with the doors unlocked, and for a company today, it borders on negligence, if not at least downright stupid, to not secure your internet borders!
How to accomplish this feat, and it really is a feat in today's world, requires some basic understanding of the issues, and then making some hard decisions in the implementation of the appropriate solution.
Here are some basic questions and answers.

Is a software firewall running on a machine less secure than a completely separate hardware firewall? I.e.; a dedicated machine tasked with protecting a LAN from a public network

The easy answer is there isn't any software solution that can be as secure as having a separate hardware firewall as its only requirement. The least expensive hardware solutions run about 0, where there are some extremely effective software firewalls that are free to personal users. If the question is whether software firewalls can be penetrated with external software, the answer is absolutely not. The way most of these software installations work is that they are invulnerable to attack and are easily updated.
Now, an industrial strength hardware solution is likely to run between 3 and k. If you know that you're likely to come under attack, because of what you do, this is probably more wise. So, going all the way with Internet security makes sense. However, a normal internet user accesing the net with a dial-up, cable modem or DSL connection is most likely to be secure most good firewall software.

When is a firewall a necessity?

Whenever you're connected to a public network!
Unbinding Microsoft services from TCP/IP will protect yourself from file and printer sharing intrusions. however, the full answer is because a firewall will help in other ways. For example, if a Trojan horse program somehow took up residence in your system it would open a high-numbered port. Then, when you were connected to the Internet that open Trojan port could be scanned and located. Now your system is wide open, and the trojan can do anything that they want to do. A firewall proactively blocks unauthorized network traffic so that the Trojan living inside your computer could never be found or used to compromise your system. This is the reason why everyone needs a firewall.