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Access Control Lists (ACLs)
- A set of configured pattern matching rules that are applied against the headers of packet traffic as it enters (inbound) or exits (outbound) the port of the device.
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Traffic is either allowed (permitted) or filtered (denied) based on these configured rules.
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Explicit Allow:
- When packet traffic matches the permit statement of a configured ACL rule, it is considered matched and allowed to enter the network.
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Explicit Deny:
- When packet traffic matches the deny statement of a configured ACL rule, it is considered matched and filtered (discarded).
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Implicit Deny:
- If packet traffic fails to match configured permit or deny statements of configured ACL rules, the ACL fails closed, discarding all unmatched traffic by default.
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Firewall Methodologies
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Firewall Generations:
- First Generation: Packet Filtering
- Second Generation: Stateful Filtering
- Third Generation: Application Filtering
- NGFW (Next Generation Firewall)
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Packet Filtering
- Inspects packets between computers.
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When a packet does not match the packet filter's set of filtering rules, the packet filter either:
- Drops (silently discards) the packet; or
- Rejects the packet (discards it and generates an Internet Control Message Protocol notification for the sender).
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Circuit-Level Gateway (Stateful Packet Inspection):
- Operates up to layer 4 (transport layer) of the OSI model. Retains packets in ingress until enough information is available to make a judgment about its state.
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Stateful vs Stateless
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Stateful:
- A stateful communication is one that remembers an exchange between two sources after that communication has ended.
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Stateless:
- A stateless communication is one that saves no information about the participants of a communication session.
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Application-Level Gateway (Application Firewall):
- Inspects traffic at the Application Layer. Detects unwanted applications attempting to bypass the firewall using a protocol on an allowed port
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Web Application Firewall (WAF):
- A specific type of application firewall used to protect servers (and their client sessions) from XSS and SQL injection, among other attacks, during HTTP sessions.
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Perimeter Networks
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Firewalls often connect three types of networks, categorized by the trust of those networks relative to the organization:
- Internal Network
- External Network
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Demilitarized Zone (DMZ):
- Also referred to as a Perimeter Network
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The boundary between:
- The Customer Edge (CE):
- The private, locally managed-and-owned side of a network
- The Provider Edge (PE):
- The public, usually provider-managed side of a network
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List the three most common hardware firewall network configurations:
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2-Leg Configuration
- A network security configuration where a single hardware firewall is used to protect the organization, as follows:
- Internal Network >> Firewall >> Internet Edge (ISP)
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3-Leg Configuration
- A network security configuration where the DMZ is attached to a separate connection of the company firewall.
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This means the firewall has three connections:
- One to the company LAN
- One to the DMZ
- One to the Internet.
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Back-to-Back Configuration
- A network security configuration where two dedicated hardware firewalls are used to protect the organization, as follows:
- Internal Network >> Internal Firewall >> DMZ >> External Firewall >> Internet Edge (ISP)