Setting up a firewall

Firewalls are a very important aspect to include in your network and security design. Firewalls are extremely easy to implement, but sometimes hard to implement well. The problem with firewalls is that they can sometimes offer a false sense of security to those who aren't familiar with the best ways to manage them. Sure, they're good to have, but simply having a firewall isn't enough by itself.

The false sense of security comes when someone thinks that they're protected just because a firewall is installed and enabled, but they're also often opening traffic from any network to internal ports. Take into consideration the firewall that was introduced with Windows XP and enabled by default with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Yes, it was a good step but users simply clicked the "allow" button whenever something wanted access, which defeats the entire purpose of having a firewall. Windows implements this better nowadays, but the...