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.
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 chapter 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.
With RFID, Think Process and Not Just Technology
As always, the very real danger is that managers themselves will become seduced by the new technologies and then appreciate them only superficially and misunderstand their true purpose and potential.
What is ITSP Sourcing?
An entire library could be written on this topic. In the ITSM world, sourcing is considered part of the service design model and something every business customer plans well before the service requirements are finalized.
Why is IT Governance Key to your Business Goals?
Legislative compliance is often derived first from a lack of governance that creates a catastrophe, followed by law to enforce behavior and actions. IT governance should be a sub-element of overall corporate governance in which the business is clear about its style of policy and organizational structure that will extend itself to IT.
