Internet Edge and Defense in Depth
Robert Brockway
robert at timetraveller.org
Tue Dec 6 23:20:05 UTC 2011
On Tue, 6 Dec 2011, Holmes,David A wrote:
> Some firewall vendors are proposing to collapse all Internet edge
> functions into a single device (border router, firewall, IPS, caching
> engine, proxy, etc.). A general Internet edge design principle has been
> the "defense in depth" concept. Is anyone collapsing all Internet edge
> functions into one device?
Hi David. A principle of network firewall design has long been that you
want to minimise services (proxy, etc) running there as they can be a
vector for attack against the firewall itself.
In the end this is about risk analysis. In most cases I would recommend
against loading the firewall with additional functionality, for a variety
of reasons. In some cases it may make sense to do so.
This is completely separate to whether servers should even have a firewall
or IPS in front of them. That's another (interesting) discussion :)
Cheers,
Rob
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