The cheap little routers you get from Best Buy and Staples may have a firewall, but they are woefully inadequate.
* They lack advanced logging. A more advanced firewall can keep a log of all traffic to and from your network. So when you start getting login attempts from China, you'll know about it.
* They lack unified defense. If one of your users visits an infected website and opens up a virus or something, the more advanced firewalls can take it out BEFORE it gets to the user's computer.
* They lack advanced filtering. Some on this forum have complained about workers surfing Facebook all day. A more advanced firewall can block such sites on-the-fly.
While Windows does have it's own firewall, and it's a good one, it's only meant to protect the machine its on, not the entire network. And even so, it will not protect against attacks directed at published services on that computer.
I realize that purchasing a more advanced firewall is something you never considered. Believe me, I've had doctors yell at me for suggesting the idea. However, any security expert will tell you that security is best in layers and that your Internet gateway is your very first line of defense. And in my experience, is almost always the first thing most skimp out on.
JamesNT
.png "ACUF Donor I")
