
A couple of plotlines in the biggest movie of the 2016 holiday season were loosely related to network security. A few scenes of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story featured hacking of smart devices, data theft, and even social engineering. Interestingly, one of the main plot points in the film involves a group of rebels who force their way into an imperial planet outpost protected by a force field that many information security experts recognized as an allusion to a network firewall.
Learning the Importance of Network Security
It is interesting to note that the Rogue One rebels took advantage of security flaws to accomplish their mission. They encountered a single firewall, the force field, and they were able to breach it because it was not properly segmented; although the force field restricted electronic communications coming in and out of the planet outpost, a single shield was set up to protect all assets. Ideally, the digital blueprints they stole should have been protected within the network in a guarded segment.
Firewalls are the first line of defense in a data network; when they are used for enterprise purposes, they should be hardware devices that can provide Unified Threat Management. At Sonic Systems, our security technicians recommend the SonicSecure firewall server as a sensible business solution that can do more than preventing intrusions. This firewall gives business owners peace of mind by monitoring inbound and outbound traffic, controlling access to certain websites, connecting through virtual private networks, and more.
In the end, the last thing business owners in the High Desert want is to run their office networks with only the firewall that comes with their router.