In our experience, features have not been a problem of working with Cisco and Checkpoint firewalls. The primary obstacle has been cost. When starting Charleston Security Tech, our intent was to a secure the digital landscape for everyday home environment. The obvious need is among remote workers, but so much more. Seemingly all of us have at least some level of online activities we participate in. From utilities and financial management to gaming and social media platforms, we’re all increasingly online. But what’s increasing at an even faster rate? The risks and vulnerabilities that go along with all modern internet use.
Along with many not-so-obvious vulnerabilities are 1) open attack vectors and 2) exploits of your home networks. Charleston Security Tech was birthed out of the desire to bring this situation to light. The internet’s lack of updated laws and rules of conduct leave it in the state of a wild wild west - legally and ethically. This allows seedy, opportunistic hackers aiming to steal identities, finances, and any personal, or intellectual property that will gain them money. If you connect to the internet, be advised, you are exposed.
We’ve been working with an OpenSource firewall called PFSense, which released its first firewall to the public in 2006. Over the years, PFSense has become a figurative firewall on steroids, formally known as a Cyber Network Defense (CND) suite. No matter what your profession is, this is an array of tools needed to maintain logical perimeter security on your home network(s). It also provides many other helpful features for which people pay monthly fees - for example a VPN service. This is actually included in PFSense (a VPN Server) and you no longer have to pay someone to host your VPN connection. Keep in mind that all VPN traffic is decrypted at the endpoint. Thus, it’s important that you trust the company that you are paying this service for, as they have all of your logins and passwords. And if you’re using a “free” VPN service - well, it’s not really free. Look at it this way: If your providing all of your logins to banks, email, investments, etc., then you’re “paying” them in the form of your personal data. Whereas, when you use the PFSense VPN, it is your VPN. Therefore - most importantly - you are maintaining security, privacy, and control of your own data.
The issue is not getting better, internet crimes are exponentially growing. Data breaches in 2024 have affected billions of people and companies of all shapes and sizes. (We welcome you to not take only our word but conduct your own online search; there’s no shortage of news on this topic.)
Back to PFSense. It is free open source software, and if desired you can purchase a firewall appliance from Netgate. The beauty of the PFSense software being free is - you don’t have to buy a firewall appliance. You can Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). This means in most instances, if you have a decent Desktop PC laying around, we can re-purpose it as your home firewall . It will then operate solely as a dedicate firewall (with minor hardware add-ons). In our experience, PFSense is the best option for maximum protection against perpetrators entering your home network, and financially.
You will be astonished with what your Internet Service Provider is allowing to come right into your router, and what your router passes through right into your home network. Please keep in mind, router firewalls are really just routers. Frequently seen marketing statements of “built-in firewalls” provide a false sense of security at best. It’s more of a joke when they only block a small percentage of thousands of known vulnerabilities - or identified hack techniques being used as we speak - to attack and exploit anyone connected to the internet.
We all want to believe our personal data and systems that we think are protected are actually that - protected. The realm of cybersecurity can be overwhelming and make folks want to bury their heads in the sand. That’s why we formed Charleston Security Tech. We want to team with you to mitigate risk and help provide the digital protection we all deserve.
