13

Firewall

13.1 Overview

This chapter shows you how to enable the P-660RU-Tx firewall. Use the firewall to protect your P-660RU-Tx and network from attacks by hackers on the Internet and control access to it. By default the firewall:

•allows traffic that originates from your LAN computers to go to all other networks.

•blocks traffic that originates on other networks from going to the LAN.

•blocks SYN and port scanner attacks.

By default, the P-660RU-Tx blocks DDOS, LAND and Ping of Death attacks whether the firewall is enabled or disabled.

13.1.1 What You Can Do in the Firewall Screens

Use the Firewall screen (Section 13.2 on page 112) to enable firewall and/or SPI on the P-660RU-Tx.

13.1.2 What You Need to Know About Firewall

SYN Attack

A SYN attack floods a targeted system with a series of SYN packets. Each packet causes the targeted system to issue a SYN-ACK response. While the targeted system waits for the ACK that follows the SYN-ACK, it queues up all outstanding SYN-ACK responses on a backlog queue. SYN-ACKs are moved off the queue only when an ACK comes back or when an internal timer terminates the three-way handshake. Once the queue is full, the system will ignore all incoming SYN requests, making the system unavailable for legitimate users.

DoS

Denials of Service (DoS) attacks are aimed at devices and networks with a connection to the Internet. Their goal is not to steal information, but to disable a

 

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P-660RU-Tx User’s Guide