Basics of Firewall

A firewall is a software-defined product. Which is also installed into a physical device with necessary peripherals like a cooling fan, power console, Physical Ethernet interfaces (I/O).

A firewall is a network security device and gateway level device. Basically, it is used to deny unauthorized access or unauthorized TCP/UDP packets.

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT 

A firewall is used to inspect the incoming and outgoing TCP/UPD packets with service Ports by User-defined rules called Access Control Rules (ACL).

All firewall has a pre-defined policy called 'Implicit policy' to deny all inbound and outbound traffic.

To access the internet or different network through firewalls, we have to write an ACL with Source IP address, Destination IP Address and service number (ports, ex: HTTP, SSH).

In the above picture, each brick is a user-defined ACL to access/allow specific network traffic. 

Firewall packet inspection methods: Stateless and Stateful

Stateless inspection 

In this method firewall only check the source and destination IP address with ACL.

    [+] If packet details match with ACL - The firewall will pass the packet.

    [-]  If the packet does meet the ACL -The firewall will Deny the packet.

It's also called Packet Filtering.

But in this method network services were unable to restrict. To overcome this security impact Stateful inspection method used in the Firewall in earlier days.

Stateful inspection 

Stateful packet inspection provides services beyond simple packet filtering, by additionally tracking TCP or UDP sessions between devices.

For example, the stateful inspection can track connections that originate from the trusted network. This session information is kept in a state session table, which allows temporary holes to be opened in the firewall for the return traffic, which might otherwise be denied. 

Connections from the untrusted network to the trusted network are also monitored, to prevent Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. If a high number of half-open sessions are detected, the firewall can be configured to drop the session (and even block the source) or send an alert message indicating an attack is occurring.

 A half-open TCP session indicates that the three-way handshake has not yet completed. A half-open UDP session indicates that no return UDP traffic has been detected. A large number of half-opened sessions will chew up resources while preventing legitimate connections from being established.

Currently, we are using  NGFW Firewalls to protect our network.