About The Symantec Endpoint Protection Firewall - Symantec 20032623 - Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition Implementation Manual

About the Symantec Endpoint Protection firewall

The firewall reviews the packets of data that travel across the Internet. A packet
is a discrete chunk of data that is part of the information flow between two
computers. Packets are reassembled at their destination to appear as an unbroken
data stream.
Packets contain information about the following:
Sending computers
Intended recipients
How the packet data is processed
Ports that receive the packets
Ports are the channels that divide the stream of data that comes from the Internet.
Applications that run on a computer listen to the ports. The applications accept
the data that is sent to the ports.
Network attacks exploit weaknesses in vulnerable applications. Attackers use
these weaknesses to send the packets that contain malicious programming code
to ports. When vulnerable applications listen to the ports, the malicious code lets
the attackers gain access to the computer.
See About the Symantec Endpoint Protection firewall"
See Managing firewall protection"
The Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition firewall uses firewall
policies and rules to allow or block network traffic. The Symantec Endpoint
Protection Small Business Edition includes a default Firewall policy with default
firewall rules for the office environment. The office environment is normally
under the protection of corporate firewalls, boundary packet filters, or antivirus
servers. Therefore, it is normally more secure than most home environments,
where limited boundary protection is available.
Firewall rules control how the client protects the client computer from malicious
inbound traffic and malicious outbound traffic. The firewall automatically checks
all the inbound and the outbound packets against these rules. The firewall then
allows or blocks the packets based on the information that is specified in rules.
When a computer tries to connect to another computer, the firewall compares
the type of connection with its list of firewall rules. The firewall also uses stateful
inspection of all network traffic.
When you install the console for the first time, it adds a default Firewall policy
to each group automatically.
Managing firewall protection
Managing firewall protection
on page 207.
on page 205.
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