Firewalls
A good firewall is one of your primary tools to protect your system. By blocking access attempts completely, an attacker trying to exploit a security hole in your operating system or software is stopped dead. If they can not connect to your system, they can not exploit any holes in it.
Even if you need to allow access to, say, your web server, you can allow anyone to get to it, but no where else. You can also allow a user to be able to connect to your system to work from home, but only from their specific IP address, and block access to anyone else trying to connect. The combinations are endless.
The other, often overlooked, aspect of firewalls, is limiting outbound connections. If you have users that just can not seem to keep from checking their Facebook page, for example, you can block the outbound traffic going to Facebook, or any other sites you choose.
Several times, we have been contacted by customers who are experiencing slow Internet connections. Investigating the cause, it was often found that employees were streaming music to their PC to listen to while they worked. The effect of this, was that they were using most, or all, of the bandwidth to the Internet for their music. Blocking the traffic to and from these music streaming sites solved the problem.
Another one that I am often requested to block is YouTube. Video streams take up a lot of bandwidth.
So, a properly configured firewall not only increases your system security, it can improve your overall performance, too. For help setting up your Firewall and tuning it contact CCS Retail Systems Support.