No one could have ever imagined that the immense potential and benefits of creating and using small as well as large networks would also come packed with a hidden factor which would make the network highly vulnerable to the outside world and its miscreants.
Networks and the Internet are rapidly expanding sectors of the computing market. Many companies, organizations, and indeed individuals have installed such systems without realizing the risks they are running. This paper examines those risks and their solutions.
Since the advent of the Internet many people have sought for the problem of creating an impregnable, user friendly, firewall. The constant threat of the hacker and cracker has never been so acknowledged as has been in the last three years. Coupled with the business need for being able to conduct Electronic Commerce on the Internet safely has led the industry toward the construction of the perfect firewall.