Obtaining the Right Firewall Protection with IT Support in Houston

IT support providers in Houston can help you choose the right firewall for your business and even help you to upgrade, as necessary going forward. You may not realize this intuitively, but as it turns out, a single “static” firewall solution is seldom enough to properly secure your business against intruders. You’re going to have to upgrade at regular intervals. The goal posts, as it were, are always moving.

There are a number of reasons for this. Primarily, technological advancement is the culprit. It turns out tech increases on itself at regular intervals. Moore’s Law predicts this increase will occur about every 18 months. Accordingly, as new strengths develop with new software, so do new weaknesses. Such vulnerabilities may lie primarily undiscovered for years until some hacker figures out there’s a hole and exploits it. If you don’t continuously upgrade your technology protections, you’re going to be vulnerable. Whether or not you’re undermined by cybercrime is entirely another thing, but you don’t want those vulnerabilities to sink the “battleship” of your business.

Accordingly, you need to find the right kind of firewall or the right combination of them. There are four basic firewall protection measures:

• Proxy
• UTM
• Traditional
• Network Address Translation

Proxy Firewalls

A proxy firewall solution is basically a system of network security which will ensure that messages which are received on the network are properly filtered. This filtering takes place at the layer termed the “application” layer. This kind of firewall is client-based and will be appropriate in differing degrees for differing businesses. Check with your MSP to see what’s right for yours.

UTM

A UTM firewall is a “Unified Threat Management” solution that is usually put into use in conjunction with a software of an antivirus kind. The idea is utility that is neither complex nor difficult.

Traditional Firewall Protections

Traditional firewalls are part of a secondary firewall category defined by hardware projection. Basically, the traditional firewall operates from an in-built protocol which allows or disallows access depending on whether the right conditions are met. Activity is monitored at both the close and beginning of a given connection.

Network Address Translation

This type of firewall is also of the “hardware” variety, and by many is considered to be one of the most secure on the market. Basically, an entire group of computers is enshrouded behind one IP. The individual IPs of individual units are invisible without the network, only being visible within.

Determining Your Best Match

An IT support provider in Houston can be fundamental in helping you to obtain the firewall protections which will best safeguard your operation against cybercriminal elements. This is an increasingly important thing to consider because threats continue to develop in conjunction with new tech. Also, as technology plays an increasingly integral role in operations, more cybercriminal activity is expected. Some experts say it will top $6 trillion within the next three years.

Securing Your Business

IT support in Houston through ICS can help you acquire the right firewall for your operation. Additionally, we can help you secure your business in other ways which will safeguard you against increasingly pernicious cybercriminal threats. Contact us now for the latest in tech protections and to help secure your business.

Jason Simons

ICS is a Texas-based 40-year-old technology company specializing in Managed IT, VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Surveillance solutions for US and International businesses. ICS has over 4000 regional installations and specializes in multi-site businesses between 25 and 2500 employees. ICS’s customers enjoy the experience of ICS’s Total Care program which provides clients flat fee services with obsolescence and growth protection. Whether a customer elects to deploy their IT, Video Conferencing or VoIP in the cloud or on the customer’s premise, ICS can provide a full turn-key solution for our clients under one flat monthly fee.