- It's not yet part of the PR and marketing lexicon. But firewalls can be the difference between operating in a fish tank and tightly controlling the flow of information.
Firewalls, or protectorship software, should be seen as a front-line barrier in protecting client and company information from hackers and other infiltrators.
"Think about how often PR people use the Internet for research or to gather background information for clients and you'll realize the importance of making sure your information is secure," said Jessica Johannes, a PR specialist with Checkpoint Software Technologies, a Redwood, Calif.-based company which specializes in firewalls. "You want to make sure that your connection to the Internet doesn't give outsiders a chance to access your company's network and information you don't want them to have."
According to research conducted by PR NEWS, the cost of a firewall is fairly reasonable and for a company with less than 50 computers to protect, you can expect to pay about $5,000 for installation and between $1,000 and $2,000 every year in maintenance costs. A larger company, with thousands of computers linked to a network, will likely spend around $15,000, with $5,000 earmarked for yearly maintenance.
Keeping Track of the Technology
- Because firewall technology changes rapidly, understanding the benefits of a firewall may mean turning to consultants for mentoring, and most likely will entail holding in-depth meetings with your IS team. That's because firewalls have been enhanced over and over since they were first introduced (they were originally referred to as routers) and thus, triggered a wave of business activity in the early 1990s.
- Make sure the company has NCSA certification;
- Determine how well-versed your technical support staff is and what platform, usually Windows NT or Unix, you have so that the two are compatible;
- Factor in how fast your connection to the Internet is (most small companies have a 56-kilobits-per-second connection; only very large companies have a 45-megabits-per-second connection, what's referred to as T-3); and
- If you're going to allow outsiders in through firewalls, make sure your system supports strong authentication - in short, that you use something beyond re-usable passwords which "network sniffers" can track and eventually try to use to get into your network.
Guidelines For
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In sum, a firewall is usually constructed at the Internet connection, and controls the flow of traffic between the Internet and internal networks. Systems vary, however, and may include everything from encryption components to password generator cards which create random passwords to discourage hackers. Remember: you want people to be able to access your company Web site and information but you don't want to give them a tunnel to access other company data.
Today, firewalls, many of them application gateways, are the key business safety nets for protecting company information. A firewall is essentially a barrier that keeps intruders from getting their hands on company databases that include anything from who your clients are to how much they pay you to drafts for soon-to-be-released news.
"This is absolutely a concern for PR," Johannes said. "In PR, you're often dealing with time-sensitive information and you want to control how and when it gets into the marketplace."
"Firewalls have been improved through the years because it used to be that what they looked at was the origin and destination of what was coming into your system but it was impossible to decide who was the good guy or who was the bad guy," said John Pescatore, a senior consultant Trusted Information Systems Inc., a Rockville, Md., company that specializes in firewalls.
TIS's firewalls are certified by the National Computer Security Association - which is an industry endorsement that includes testing by the National Security Agency.
According to Pescatore, there are about 40 companies now selling firewall software and about four leaders: Checkpoint, TIS, Rapter and Cisco, with systems varying from several thousand dollars for initial start-up costs to tens of thousands of dollars every month for major corporations that want the creme de la creme.
(TIS, 1-888-FIREWALL; CheckPoint, 800/429-4391)