TABLE OF CONTENTS Security options
Choosing a platform
Understanding ports and services
Evaluating weaknesses
Design and build or purchase
Once the decision has been made to invest in a firewall policy, there are many things to consider. Just like deciding to become a millionaire doesn t impart wealth instantaneously, deciding to have a firewall doesn t impart security instantaneously. The road ahead can be hard and filled with obstacles. And, just like wealth, a security portfolio (i.e., firewall policy) should be diversified. You should understand when to invest, when to act, when to consolidate, and when to diversify. Flavor-of-the-day security tools can actually be helpful when dealing with current threats that in time will no longer be an issue. The DoS attacks of 1998 through 2002 are one such example firewall technology simply had not been designed with the possibility that someone would deliberately harness millions of computers with a virus and then attack a single network.
Since then, there have been many security threats, against both the physical and the cyber world that, in all their reprehensibility, were truly inconceivable, merely because sane people don t behave that way, don t reason like that, and typically can t even imagine a line of thought that is so far outside the human experience. Of course, there are many so-called reformed hackers who are for hire, but one thing is certain: The truly disturbed madmen aren t for hire
