Cyber Essentials with Clumber Consultancy - Boundary Firewalls and Gateways

You may recall that back in 2019, Clumber Consultancy became the first in our sector to achieve the Government's Cyber Essentials Plus and IASME Audited Gold Awards.

Now, with a new partnership announced between the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the IASME Consortium to relaunch the 'Cyber Essentials' Scheme, Clumber's Data Security specialist Jo Austin looks at each of the 5 key controls of Cyber Security according to the Cyber Essentials criteria.

First up, let's take a look at Firewalls...

If configured correctly, these devices protect your network from the internet by only allowing the traffic you trust to access your network.

The Cyber Essentials Scheme requires that all devices that are connected to the internet are to be protected with a firewall or correctly configured router.

This effectively creates a 'buffer zone' between your IT network and other, external networks - i.e. between your computer (or computers) and 'the Internet'.

There are two types of firewall, Boundary and host-based (software).

A boundary firewall is a network device which can restrict the inbound and outbound network traffic to services and devices on its network.

A host-based firewall is software configured on a device. This works in the same way as a boundary firewall but only protects the single device on which it is configured.

This approach can provide for more tailored rules and means that the rules apply to the device wherever it is used. However, this increases the administrative overhead.

To find out more about the requirements for Cyber Essentials accreditation under this technical control theme, email Jo on jaustin@clumberconsultancy.co.uk