I would imagine that most people have heard and seen on the nightly news incidents where a company's computer system has been hacked into. Why do people target these companies? Usually because they are well known companies that have servers which contain mass amounts of information. Many people think that since they are not a well known, nationally recognized company that they are not prone to attacks. This is a very foolish way to think. A personal computer at home on a DSL connection of cable connection can be broken into. Why wouldn't a company's e-mail server that is published on the Internet be prone to it?

Many people believe that a Firewall is to block viruses. Unfortunately, it is not, though some have built in programs to do this function, this is not the reason to buy a firewall. The main reason is to stop people on the Internet from getting into YOUR company's information.

Here is a quick overview of how the Internet works:
A server has an IP address; every server has an IP address. Even though you go to www.microsoft.com, what is really happening is other servers are telling your computer that name (www.microsoft.com) is at a certain IP address. www.microsoft.com happens to be 207.46.134.222. To view Microsoft's website you are going to the IP address and also a particular port on that IP address, specifically port 80, which is the port that handles all web page requests. This is only one port out of 65535 ports that can be used.

Each port on a server is used for a specific purpose; FTP (File Transfer Protocol) uses port 21 for example. With the correct commands a person can download information using FTP onto there own computer. This is where a firewall comes into play.

With a firewall you can block access to any port that you want to. If you would only like people to be able to send you e-mail, you would only allow port 25 able to connect from the outside world to your e-mail server.

Many ports on a server have the ability to give out confidential information unless they are properly secured. People believe that viruses are a big problem to their company, wait until your company's information is in the hands of someone no one knows.