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A combination of hardware and software that secures access to a local network or computer. A firewall guards the local network by analyzing the data leaving and entering, allowing authorized traffic through while keeping unauthorized traffic out. Firewalls are typically configurable by network administrators so that they can set policy to determine what traffic is deemed safe.
Packet-filtering and stateful packet-filtering firewalls classify traffic based on a packet's source, destination, port or other basic information. Proxy firewalls, which look at content and may involve authentication and encryption, can be more flexible and secure but tend to be far slower.
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