Introduction to the Technology
11
Network-Layer Firewalls: Packet Filters
As the name suggests, this component filters IP packets on the basis of
source and destination address, IP flags, and packet payload. This allows
an administrator to grant or deny access to services based on factors such
as:
• The source address
• The destination address
• The protocol (e.g., TCP, UDP, ICMP)
• The port number
The primary advantages of packet filters are their speed and their
independence of operating systems and applications in use behind the
firewall.
Advanced implementations of packet filters also inspect packets at higher
network layers. Such filters interpret transport-level information (such as
TCP and UDP headers) to analyze and record all current connections. This
process is known as stateful inspection.
A stateful packet filter records the status of all connections, and allows only
those packets associated with a current connection to pass. This is espe-
cially important for allowing connections from a protected network to an
unprotected one, but disallowing connections in the opposite direction.
When a computer in the protected network establishes a connection with an
external server, the stateful packet filter will allow the server’s response
packets in to the protected network. When the original connection is closed,
however, the packet filter will block all further packets from the un-
protected network (unless, of course, they have been explicitly allowed).
Application-Layer Gateways: Application Proxies
The second main kind of firewall is the application-layer gateway. These
gateways act as a middleman in connections between external systems and
protected ones. With such gateways, packets aren’t forwarded so much as
translated and rewritten, with the gateway performing the translation.
The translation process on the gateway is called a proxy server, or proxy
for short. Because each proxy serves only one or a few well-defined appli-
cation protocols, it is able to analyze and log protocol usage at a fine-
grained level, and thereby offer a wide range of monitoring and security
options.
The analysis can be especially intensive at the application level, because
the application data transferred conforms to standardized protocols. The
firewall knows about and can inspect every aspect of the data flow. This
also means that small, manageable modules can be used for each kind of