Firewalling the Net

To connect any stand-alone enterprise network to the internet in a safe and secure manner, it is necessary to erect a 'firewall' at the interface between the internal and external networks. We review the current state of firewall technology and describe the principles behind the solutions that are bing adopted by BT. We also describe how companies are presently utilising the bandwidth of the internet to extend their internal intranets using cryptographic techniques and indicate some of the directions in which firewall research will be going in the next few years.