* Information resources concerning firewalls
As a teacher, I am always looking for useful information for my students. I think of you, Dear Readers, as students and fellow teachers, too, because the nature of security forces all of us to keep learning all the time. Today I’d like to point you to some useful free resources for learning and teaching about firewalls.
CSE FAQ
Starting with materials for your newest employees, there’s a simple list of frequently-asked questions on the Web site of the Communications Security Establishment of the Government of Canada at:
https://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/en/knowledge_centre/FAQ.html
The FAQ includes a list of older books about firewalls (the newest is from 1997).
Firewalls FAQ
A more technical firewalls FAQ is from C. Matthew Curtin and is dated 2001:
https://www.faqs.org/faqs/firewalls-faq/
This document is far more detailed and goes into technical details that will interest system and network administrators. Major topics include:
* Background and firewall basics
* Design and implementation issues
* Various attacks
* How do I …
* Some commercial products and vendors
* Glossary of firewall-related terms
* TCP and UDP ports
CERT/CC Security Improvement Modules on Firewalls
The Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT/CC) of the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University has an extensive series of documents beginning with “Deploying Firewalls” at:
https://www.cert.org/security-improvement/modules/m08.html
According to the introduction, “These practices are intended primarily for experienced system and network administrators and integrators.” The recommended practices are divided into four sections:
* Prepare
* Configure
* Test
* Deploy
Each of the sections has one or more documents, some of them several pages long, with well-structured information. You will also want to explore the other Security Improvement Modules available through the link at the bottom of every page.
White papers from Fortinet
One of the resources I stumbled upon in my research is a collection of white papers from Fortinet:
The papers that caught my eye are listed on a form at:
https://www.fortinet.com/leads/action/leadRequest.do?categoryId=10
They include a series of documents looking at vertical markets, such as educational institutions and healthcare, in which I am particularly interested. They also have case studies, which are always valuable for teaching. Incidentally, the form doesn’t work with Opera 7.54, which is my standard browser; I had to switch to the dreaded Internet Explorer to fill in the registration form for the request. One nice feature is that once you have registered, you can download all the papers you want as PDF files.
I hope you will find these resources helpful in your learning and training. Just for the record, I have no ties whatsoever to any of the organizations listed in this article.
