RONGO UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF INFOCOMS

REG. NUMBER: ISC/007/2015

PETER KARANJA NJAU

INF 460: NETWORK DESIGN

ASSIGNMENT
Discuss the security implications and the speed of access to LAN resources in relation to the
position of the firewall in a LAN connection.

LAN (Local Area Network) is a type of wireless network that connects computers and other
devices that require network to a server within a relatively small geographical area such as a
building, or a couple of buildings. It can be an office, institution or a commercial
establishment. A LAN can be connected to other LANs over any distance via telephone
lines and radio waves.

A firewall is a network security system whose main activity is to control and monitor the
incoming and the outbound network traffic based on the specified security rules. It typically
filters all information coming through the Internet to the network or a computer system.

The firewall can be introduced in a Local Area Network to improve its security and can be
placed strategically so as to unveil its full purpose. This is required to ensure privacy,
confidentiality, authenticity, integrity and the availability of the data being sent over the
LAN. With regard to the position of a firewall in the network layout there are:

(a) Host firewalls, which are the software applications which filter traffic entering or leaving
a single computer.

(b) Network firewalls, which are the software are normally running on a dedicated network
device or computer positioned on the boundary between two or more networks or DMZ
(Demilitarized Zones). This kind of firewall filters all traffic entering or leaving the
connected networks

The common placement of the firewall, especially the internal network firewall is in the
external perimeter, also called the network edge. The perimeter firewalls that are installed in
this manner are designed to secure the traffic to and from the Internet (north-to-south
traffic). This placement however, may be able to identify external threats passing through
the network edge firewalls, their positioning in the network means that they are unable to
identify or block threats such as viruses, hackers etc. that are moving laterally across the
connection or network (east to west traffic).
This process of checking the packets needs to happen separately for each connection or
communication between two hosts and in both directions. Comparing this processing with
that of a low-touch network element such as a switch or router, firewalls will cause delay
that could affect the flow of information between hosts on a network.
The amount of delay experienced through a firewall is dependent on how the firewall is
implemented. Firewalls that process in hardware will be faster than firewalls that process in
software.
An improperly secured wireless LAN may be accessed from outside the organization. An
internal firewall that separates portions of an enterprise network cannot guard against
wireless communications between local systems on different sides of the internal firewall.
The host based firewall filtering rules can be tailored to the host environment.
Specific corporate security policies for servers can be implemented, with different filters for
servers used for different application.
In conclusion we can say that the position of the firewall is a factor to consider when
connecting in a LAN or any other type of network connection. Also having several types of
firewalls will increase the level of security in the network. Also the configuration of the
firewall should be done in a correct manner to ensure that no chance of intrusion by various
firewall bypassing acts.