Internet Firewall Essentials by Eric Hall It seems as if everybody is worried about connecting their organizations to the Internet these days. There are widespread reports of hackers breaking into everything from banks to warehouses and gaining unauthorized access to critical systems. If you're leading an internal World Wide Web development project for your company, you've probably had to face your own security advocates who decry the end of pristine systems yet offer no assistance in researching or developing a mutually satisfactory solution. Well, here's your help. This chapter of Network Computing's Interactive Network Design Manual will outline the critical elements for implementing an Internet firewall in your organization, hopefully in a way that allows you to choose the solutions that best suit your needs. The options range from the cheap to the not-so-cheap, from the visible to the invisible, and from difficult to easy . As individual requirements will vary, we cannot readily endorse any one product or approach over another, yet they all offer benefits that you may want to use. In this new market, most products are only partially finished -- yet are completely priced -- so your choices will likely end up as budgetary decisions as much as functional ones. Firewall Basics Additional Security Measures Proxy and Bastion Servers, and Additional Concerns Additional Firewall Resources Updated November 15, 1996 Print This Page E-mail this URL