How are Firewall Systems Incorporated in Remote Monitoring?

Firewall implementations are available today from a wide array of vendors. With the ever-increasing awareness of network security and the costs of lost information, many new firewall implementations continue to emerge.

Firewall Systems in Remote Monitoring
Firewall Systems in Remote Monitoring

This article discusses Black Hole, a firewall produced by Milkyway Networks Corporation in Ottawa, Canada. This firewall is currently the only implementation certified at the AL-1 level from the Canadian government’s Department of National Defense Communications Security Establishment (DND-CSE).

Remote monitoring was developed to address the challenge of securing the private network from the public network, more commonly known as the Internet. Remote monitoring does this by providing the following:

  • Full authentication for both incoming and outgoing traffic
  • Mail relay services to eliminate the need for send mail on the firewall for mail delivery
  • Real-time alert messaging for faster administrative response E Statistical traffic processing that logs intruder attempts
  • Full network address translation to reduce administrative time and costs
  • One-time password schemes that increase user and password security
  • A flexible hardware platform and full GUI interface to provide ease of use and customization

This discusses how to protect the systems and information on your private network using remote monitoring as your firewall.

Understanding Black Hole

A black hole is, by definition, a void. Dr. Stephen Hawking describes a black hole in his book A Brief History of Time as a compact star with sufficient gravitational force as to prevent any light from escaping, and would therefore not be visible to us (paraphrased here for this article’s purposes). This is in fact what a remote monitoring firewall does. It completely isolates the internal network from the external, blocking all knowledge of the internal network from the external network.

When this firewall is initially installed, it defaults to a totally secure policy of “that which is not explicitly permitted is prohibited.” The security manager must determine how to configure remote monitoring to satisfy the organization’s security policy.

Remote monitoring is a secure application and circuit-level gateway that is installed between the public and private networks. It utilizes rule-based proxy servers and does not require nor use packet-filtering mechanisms of any kind.

Remote monitoring also can be installed inside an organization if internal networks exist that must be protected against from the remainder of the organization. Remote monitoring’s most common application is that of an Internet firewall; it is capable of offering Virtual Private Network services between multiple Internet-connected sites.

A Virtual Private Network can be constructed between two or more sites with remote monitoring and an Internet connection. The Internet is used to provide the network connection, and the VPN capabilities of monitoring are used to provide an encrypted and secure communications channel between the sites.

Remote monitoring is very important for companies who want to keep an eye on their business virtually.

This was a guest post from Jhon Lutera.