Technology & Devices

A hardware firewall is a physical appliance that sits on the facing end of your network and is primarily designed for one purpose:

-To let you out to the Internet while keeping the outside world from accessing your internal network.

Through a series of rules, the firewall dictates what network traffic is allowed in and out of the network. Modern-day firewalls also incorporate a variety of other security services beyond this initial design. These additional features might be: an intrusion prevention system, a network monitoring & reporting service, and VPN to support secure remote connections from user's on the road.

The evolution of firewalls have seen these additional features grow and sculpt the modern-day firewall into a robust networking device that not only aids in keeping your network safe--it stream-lines productivity. The industry has coined the term Unified Threat Management (or UTM) to describe the robust features offered on today's security appliances.