Many small businesses connect to the internet via cost-effecitve ADSL. Before ADSL, as a small business, there were very few options available to you other than to use dial-up. With ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) it became feasible for SME's to link their networks to the Internet and take advantage of  its global reach and almost instantaneous communication via the Internet's killer-app namely email.

An ADSL connection also introduces some negatives

Unfortunately when businesses connect to the Internet they also opens themselves up to external and internal threats. Whereas before the Internet one could, maybe?, get away with an out-of-date virus checker this is no longer possible. Beside the threat of viruses and the wasted time and resources they can cost a company, there is the threat of having your vital data stolen or irreplaceablly lost, then there is the issue of employee abuse of Internet connection and lost productivity with you-tube and facebook. In some cases employees install peer-to-peer software and download movies and music at work costing their employer a considerable amount in bandwidth.

Protect your ADSL connection with a firewall

Most SME's rely on the flimsy firewall that comes with their default ADSL router for protection. This software is fine for a home user but not for a business. In many cases their is only an incoming firewall but no outgoing firewall, proxing or virus scanning facilities. It does not allow you to control employee access to the net nor does it provide you with detailed reports to manage your Internet usage. In many cases the software is never updated.

Unprotected networks lead to increased costs

Without a decent firewall  business owners find that their network become increasing unstable as more and more viruses, trojan, bots and other malicious pieces of software start to wreck havoc on the network.  Owners also wonder why their bandwidth usage is so high little realising that peer-to-peer applications allow users to both upload and share content even when no-one is actively using the computer.

Usually business responds by buying anti-virus software. This is necessary but does little to increase the stability of the network or prevent abuse. Virus vendors struggle to keep up with the every rising tide of malware while Microsoft's shoddy security practices means that  Internet Explorer can cause your machine to be infected with malware just by visiting a web page.

The biggest weakness of relying on anti-virus software and your ADSL router only is that it only requires one machine on the network to be vulnerable to cause a problem. If Jane has been on leave for a month and her machine has not updated itself you are at risk. Besides anti-virus software a frequently employed policy is to tell staff not to open "suspicious" emails or visit "suspicious" sites. It goes without saying that these "policies" have little effect.

Cost-Effective Firewalls are available

If one wants to properly protect the internal network, control employee's use of the internet and manage bandwidth costs then a firewall is essential. The good news is that a firewall does not need to cost an arm-and-a-leg. A firewall can be obtained from as little as R5000 (ex vat).

Firewall benefits

Typical features of a firewall include:

• Web proxy - this will save you money on your bandwidth costs,
• Web filtering - blocking of inappropriate sites based on configurable parameters eg you-tube,
• Filtering of web sites for malicious content - stop the virus before it even reaches the end user!,
• Mail filtering and anti-spam engine - once again it better to stop the threat at the perimeter rather than fight it once it has entered the network,
• Block outgoing port for application such as Instant Messaging and Skype if that is your company policy,
• Blocking of incoming ports unless you decide to select a few ports to forward, ie allow external access to applications,
• Reports on usage per user

So a decent firewall is a necessity for any business that has a 24 hr internet connection. Once installed businesses find that the amount of down time due to viruses outbreaks,lost data,  lost productivity and bandwidth "theft" is greatly reduced  the benefits far out-weighting any cost involved in installing the firewall in the first place.