A home firewall is a cybersecurity tool that monitors your home network traffic, blocks malicious activity and prevents unauthorized access.
AI hacking advancements are happening on a daily basis… As such, if you have children or teenagers with Internet access, or work from home a lot, or have a smart home with many Internet of Things (IoT) devices, you may want to consider adding a home firewall.
I recently installed a home firewall and I’m glad I did… Read on to consider whether a home firewall is right for you.
What Is A Home Firewall?
A home firewall is a cybersecurity tool that monitors your home network traffic, blocks malicious activity and prevents unauthorized access.
Just as you have a lock on your front door, a home firewall acts as an additional layer of security to help keep unwanted malware, ransomware or dangerous/illicit content out of your home.
Firewalls can come in various forms (such as software, cloud-based and device-specific firewalls)1, however, in this article I’m talking about a physical appliance.
This device sits in your home in between your modem (the Internet connectivity device often supplied by your Internet service provider (ISP)) and all the devices that connect to the Internet on your home network.
What If My Comcast Modem Has A Firewall?
The modem/gateway you got from your Internet provider (such as Comcast/XFinity, Frontier, Verizon, etc.) almost certainly has some firewall functionality which consists of SPI, or stateful packet inspection.
SPI means that your ISP firewall is capable of monitoring the “state” of communications and blocking random inbound connections, or not letting certain packets through unless they are in a state2 that, on average, is considered “safe”.
In contrast, a dedicated, advanced or “next generation” firewall for the home, such as Firewalla or Protectli, goes beyond stateful packet inspection and performs deep packet inspection (DPI) which actually looks at the contents of the data packets.
DPI checks if data packets contain hidden malware, a ransomware tool “phoning home” or some type of content that you have decided you do not want a device – or your whole network – to be exposed to, such as pornography or social media.
Reasons You May Want to Consider Buying A Standalone Firewall For Your Home?
Artificial intelligence is dangerous when it’s in the wrong hands.
According to a recent article in the WSJ on Anthropic’s Mythos AI model release, “Cybersecurity researchers and software-makers worry that artificial intelligence is becoming so good at exploiting vulnerabilities that it could cause widespread online disruption.”
Indeed, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) indicates that one in three home networks may be infected with some sort of malware.
Reasons that you may want to consider a home firewall include:
- If you have young children or teenagers with access to the Internet and want to monitor their activity, or block pornography or other illicit online content from reaching them.
- If you work from home and often transmit or communicate sensitive information that is also stored on your home network.
- If you are a high-value executive or C-Level individual and you think you could be the target of a spearphishing attack.3
- If you have many IoT devices sharing the same home network as your personal computers and/or child’s computers or phones. The average home has 20+ connected devices; most users have zero visibility into what they’re doing.
- If you don’t know where your IoT devices were manufactured and are concerned about them “phoning home” to a foreign adversary.4
- If you think your children are using social media too much and you want to automatically block out some “family time” each day or week where there is no social media use.
- If your home network resembles the diagram below.
- If you are using your default password and/or do not regularly update your gateway/router that was provided to you by your ISP.
Home Firewall Features That Can Help Protect Your Family
I recently installed a Firewalla Purple, a mid-range small office/home office (SoHo) capable device that, when in router mode, turns your home into a mini enterprise network.
It alerts on my phone the second something suspicious happens… Some of the tools that a home firewall like Firewalla Purple, or the less expensive Firewalla Purple SE, provides include:
- IoT segmentation: You can separate out your Internet-connected/Internet of Things devices (IoT) such as Ring Doorbell, Nest Thermostats, Alexa, HomePods, Nest Protect smoke alarm, Ting, fridge, range, etc. Advanced firewalls let you isolate “IoT VLANs” so they can’t touch your important stuff.
- Ad Block/Rule-based filtering: You can set up limitations to limit ads, pornography, social media, video, Internet gaming, etc.
- Family/parental controls: As mentioned above, in addition to limiting access to certain content, you can set up blocks of “family time” during which no one has access to social media, gaming, etc.
- Deep packet inspection: DPI goes beyond basic stateful packet inspection by actually looking inside the payload of packets – the data/content itself – rather than just the headers and connection state that SPI tracks. As such, a DPI-equipped firewall is more likely to pick up a malicious actor trying to get access to you or your family.
- Application layer control: You can choose to limit access to social media apps, such as Instagram, TikTok, etc. or other apps you don’t want your network to have access to.
- Behavior analytics and outbound protection: Firewalla will monitor traffic and identify whether a device’s behavior looks suspicious based on known questionable IP addresses, malicious websites and the behavior of certain malware. The device may notify you if unusual activity, such as large data uploads, is happening on your network. You can then choose to block it, flag it or ignore it.
- AI threat detection: Firewalla uses signature-based detection to compare traffic on your network against a large database of known threats, updated regularly from the cloud. It helps spot things like malware, exploits, brute force attacks, etc. If it spots something concerning, it can prompt you to quarantine a device or limit its access to the network.
- Virtual Private Network (VPN): This turns your Firewalla into a private VPN server inside your house. When you’re away (on public Wi-Fi, cellular, travel, etc.), you connect to it and get full, encrypted access to your home network—as if you were physically there. All your traffic is protected by Firewalla’s security tools (ad-blocking, malware protection, etc.), and you can reach cameras, NAS, smart devices, etc. It’s free with no subscription.
Overall, a home firewall gives you greater control over your home network while also adding valuable features, such as a VPN, that you might otherwise have to pay for separately.
Summary
Humans are the weakest links in any security setup… This is why corporations spend millions of dollars annually to educate their employees on how to identify malicious emails that purport to come from “Microsoft Support” or “Dropbox”.
However, your family may not know how to recognize phishing emails… And, with advances in artificial intelligence making it easier and easier to spam you and your family, your home Internet environment is more exposed than ever.
While most home directed cyber attacks will be through social engineering attacks, such as phishing emails and/or tech support scams sent to your email or text messages, if your home is like most home networks that use the most basic setup (#1) above, your family may be a sitting duck for certain types of cyber risks.
As such you may want to consider installing a home firewall as an additional layer of protection for your family.
Common Home Networking Terminology
Firewall
A software or hardware tool that monitors your home network activity, blocks unwanted traffic and prevents unauthorized access either automatically or with your specific instructions.
Most routers have at least some basic firewall capabilities, such as stateful packet inspection (SPI)… However, more advanced home firewalls include important features such as rule-based filtering, deep packet inspection, application layer control and strong outbound protection, as described above.
Modem
A modem converts your ISP’s signal (cable, fiber, DSL) into a usable Internet signal. Your modem may also be referred to as a gateway.
A modem may have WiFi capabilities built-in, or it may not.
This – or a “gateway” – is a device that may be provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Xfinity, Verizon, Frontier, etc. either for free or for a monthly rental fee.
Gateway
A gateway is an all-in-one box that combines the modem + router + basic firewall + Wi-Fi.
What most ISPs give you (e.g., Comcast, Xfinity, AT&T, Frontier, Verizon, etc.) today, or you can purchase your own to avoid the rental fee.
Wireless Router
A wireless router handles routing traffic between your devices and the internet, plus built-in WiFi.
If you have a gateway, it may include router functionality.
Switch
A switch is a simple box that connects multiple wired devices (no routing or Wi-Fi).
Bridge
A bridge, or a device in “bridge mode”, turns a device into a “dumb” pass-through for traffic.
Bridge mode disables its router/firewall features so another device can take over.
Access Point (AP)
An access point is a hardware device that provides WiFi to your network. You may have a separate access point than your home modem/gateway/router and it would be connected to that device by an Ethernet cable.
Footnotes
- For instance, your PC and/or Mac come pre-installed with a firewall that protects those specific devices.
- Such as a website you are visiting responding to a request from you.
- Spearphishing attacks target high value individuals with targeted, social engineering methods seeking personal information.
- Many IoT devices are manufactured in countries that are considered to be foreign adversaries and have in some cases been banned by the U.S... China and Russia have both been recognized by the U.S. government as potentially dangerous actors in our national security. China is accused of orchestrating sophisticated hacking campaigns and supply chain attacks. Kaspersky was recently banned by the U.S. government. As such, any foreign made device or foreign-originating network traffic should be met with healthy suspicion.
