About Firewall Protection; Administrator Tips - NETGEAR FVS318G Reference Manual

About Firewall Protection

A firewall protects one network (the trusted network, such as your LAN) from another (the
untrusted network, such as the Internet), while allowing communication between the two. You
can further segment keyword blocking to certain known groups. For information about how to
set up LAN groups, see
For IPv4, a firewall incorporates the functions of a Network Address Translation (NAT) router,
protects the trusted network from hacker intrusions or attacks, and controls the types of traffic
that can flow between the Internet, DMZ, and LAN. Unlike simple NAT routers, a firewall uses
a process called stateful packet inspection to protect your network from attacks and
intrusions. NAT performs a limited stateful inspection in that it considers whether the
incoming packet is in response to an outgoing request, but true stateful packet inspection
goes far beyond NAT.
For IPv6, which in itself provides stronger security than IPv4, a firewall in particular controls
the exchange of traffic between the Internet, DMZ, and LAN.

Administrator Tips

Consider the following operational items:
1. As an option, you can enable remote management if you must manage distant sites
from a central location.
For more information, see
Configure Remote Management Access
page 287 and
2. Although rules are the basic way of managing the traffic through your system (see
of Rules to Block or Allow Specific Kinds of Traffic
control using the following features and capabilities of the VPN firewall:
• Groups and hosts. See
page 71.
• Services. See
• Schedules. See
• Allowing or blocking sites. See
• Source MAC filtering. See
• Port triggering. See
3. Some firewall settings might affect the performance of the VPN firewall.
For more information, see
4. The firewall logs can be configured to log and then email denial of access, general attack,
and other information to a specified email address.
For information about how to configure logging and notifications, see
Alerts, and Event Notifications
NETGEAR ProSAFE VPN Firewall FVS318G v2
Manage IPv4 Groups and Hosts (IPv4 LAN Groups)
Configure Authentication Domains, Groups, and Users
Manage IPv4 Groups and Hosts (IPv4 LAN Groups)
Outbound Rules
on page 128 and
Set a Schedule to Block or Allow Specific Traffic
Configure Content Filtering
Enable Source MAC Filtering
Configure Port Triggering
Performance Management
on page 353.
Firewall Protection
126
on page 328.
on page 127), you can further refine your
Inbound Rules
on page 130.
on page 195.
on page 189.
on page 196.
on page 206.
on page 320.
Configure Logging,
on page 71.
on
Overview
on