The main purpose of a firewall in computer security terms is to keep anything behind it safe from hackers and viruses. By having the correct firewall settings it can make your eCommerce solution and retail website almost invisible to potential threats, making it harder for an attack to be successful.

How Can Threats Bypass Your Firewall?

One way in which hackers can penetrate your firewall and gain access to the system is by using port scanning software. This piece of software will scan computers with open ports providing them with almost a 'backdoor' entry into your network.

With ecommerce websites and customized websites there are plenty of ports which can be open to hackers, in particular port 80 for HTTP and port 22 for SSH. These ports need to be open to allow for ecommerce websites to function properly, something which hackers can use as an advantage.

How Can I Test My Firewall Defences?

Many of us have firewalls in place, but we never actually get round to testing to make sure they are actually doing their job properly. One way to test firewall functionality can be by using software available online, in particular 'Shields Up'.

Shields up is an application which will run a particular scan against the IP address of your computer and display to you what ports are open. Having this tool as a network administrator is ideal as it is one step forward in protecting our in-development and completed websites and other eCommerce solutions.

For more information, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our team directly today!