Protecting your network from outside invaders
For my inaugural post on my fancy new church IT blog, I want to talk about the necessity of protecting your church members’ information, your church-owned computers, and each network user. I was reading Nick Nicholaou’s post about Biometrics, and I was inspired to post on network security. He wrote:
Church and ministry networks have information that, if not properly protected, could cost a lot of money in penalties plus a hurt reputation in their community.
That’s absolutely correct. If we don’t look out for our data, no one will. When I arrived at FBC, I quickly learned that the entire network was protected by an overworked $50 firewall. I don’t fault the church – they didn’t know. I’m certain that if my church overlooked this security vulnerability, many others have as well.
I don’t intend to make a case for a good firewall, but I insist that you get one. Instead, I want to give you a few pointers. Namely, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get your hands on some excellent protection. Friends, in my humble opinion, the answer is in Linux.
Last month, I installed a Linux firewall with no out-of-pocket costs. We had a spare computer, running a 300MHz P3 and 512Mb of SDRAM. You don’t need a beast. I downloaded the latest distribution of SmoothWall Express 2.0 and the DansGuardian add-on and burned them to a CD. The SmoothWall CD boots right up and walks you through the installation procedures. The DansGuardian needs a little bit of Linux finesse.
The bottom line is that this box now sits between the Interweb and the church network. There are two network cards, one goes to the cable modem and the other to a switch. It scans everything coming in and everything going out. SmoothWall is a great firewall right “out of the box.” It has an Intrusion Detection System built right in, and it logs everything. When you add DansGuardian, you gain the ability to filter content. That’s right, it makes it nearly impossible for kiddos in the computer lab to land on inappropriate content.
Thanks, Matthew, for your encouraging and helpful post! I’m glad my Biometrics article inspired you to write on this very important topic.
Blessings!
Nick
[...] been given an account at ScrubIT yet, so I have no control at all). Matthew Irvine has a couple of excellent posts on his new blog, techlesia, talking about the open source SmoothWall Express [...]